Anyone?

I’m leaving tomorrow to be in the suburbs/semi-rural area west of Chicago. I’ll be there until August 10th. I’ve just looked up the info. for the Elgin 3rd ward and am wondering, any fMh-ers in the area? Wanna get together?

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Minerva asked this question on Quimby’s “Embracing My Inner Molly” post.

How do you come to be in a marriage where work is shared equally? What if you’re already in a marriage where things haven’t been shared equally. How do you change? You have to respect your own needs and desires, but you also have to respect your partner’s. I write this from a single woman’s viewpoint (and a single woman who is scared stiff of marriage).

It’s an excellent question and I’d like to give you an opportunity to answer it.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the blind spot that obscures the contributions women make (and have made) to society.   Continuing on with the general theme of spots,  I just finished a fascinating book that discussed a blind spot that for centuries obscured a rich field of scientific research because of its association with traditional female gender roles: how infants and children learn - also known as developmental cognitive science.  

Since the early 1970s, the field of cognitive science has revealed through the systematic study of infants and young children valuable theories about how the brain develops and how we as adults learn.   For centuries, however, scientists interested in brain development were hampered by substandard theories, because infants and children weren’t at all interesting to the male scientists running the research labs.   In fact, the prevailing (male) scientific view of brain development was that infant brains had no cortex, and so infants were only slightly more conscious than, say, a carrot or a cucumber.  In other words, infants were “carrots that could cry”.  (more…)

Although I know some feminists probably recoil in horror as a I admit this, when we go on vacation, I pack for my husband. He doesn’t expect me to do it, doesn’t ask me to do it, (and has even asked me not to do it at times, but I can’t help myself). Maybe it’s the control-freak in me, but I think it has more to do with the fact that whenever he packs for himself, he forgets things. So we end up spending our precious vacation time in Target buying razors and socks or driving hours to the nearest Beehive Clothing.

Last week, as I was getting ready for our annual summer exodus to Utah, I felt an extra sense of pressure because this wasn’t just going to be an ordinary vacation of lazing around at Grandma’s house, but also a series of job interviews for Eddie that will likely seal our fate as future Utahns. It’s an event important enough that I finally convinced him to buy himself a new suit. He’s been wearing the ones he got way back in the early 1990s when he left on his mission and has long contended (with a certain amount of smugness) that as long as they still fit, he saw no need to replace them, no matter how threadbare and embarrassing they were. So in addition to trying to stuff in swimsuits, water shoes, and everyone’s favorite blankets, I had the additional responsibiity of adding well-starched shirts, black belts, and dress shoes. I made a mental note that we needed to replace a missing lace in one of the shoes once we arrived in Utah, zipped up the bags, and called it good. (more…)

I have a dirty little secret: I am a Molly Mormon. I scrapbook. I sew my own curtains. I don’t think it counts as a birthday cake unless it’s homemade.

Okay, so my scrapbook pages are really nothing special, and I’d caution you not to look too closely at the crooked hems on my curtains, and if I ever make you a birthday cake, you’d do well to eat around the toothpicks. I might be a Molly Mormon, but I’m not a very talented one.

But I love what were once called “the domestic arts.” (more…)

Most of you are probably already familiar with Beliefnet, it is a large and well-run non-denominational religion site. They are have extended an invitation to “host” fMh. We could be “beliefnet’s first Mormon blog”.

So we’re tossing around the possibility and would like to add your all’s opinions to the mix. What would you see as the advantages and disadvantages of such a move? The blog content would remain the same, the URL would have a redirect to a Beliefnet address. The front page design would be changed (some examples of bn blogs).

When I first found fMh (or rather my husband found it for me!) I was just plain relieved to find out I wasn’t alone. To find others to talk with, over subjects I found difficult. To know it wasn’t just me and to feel like I belonged.

I was somewhat intimidated, yet excited when Lisa asked me to join fMh as a permablogger. I have learnt from and enjoyed the discussions that I read daily. The thing I didn’t expect was to make such good friends. (more…)

::::Parenting Advice Needed:::::

There was a bunch of giggling down the hall (as there is most of the time) and dh came to me “Did you hear that?” and we sat and listened to the punks (7,6,4) and the neighbor girl (NG) in deep conversation. “If you tell one friend,” says NG, “then they tell another friend and then they tell a friend and then everyone knows. So you have to keep a secret.”

The secret, dh tells me, is that Brick (my 4yo) is now NG’s boyfriend, and they kissed!
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I buried my little daughter this week. It was not easy. But we’ve been praying for peace and we have found some. I’ve actually smiled this week, teased people, helped cranky toddlers calm down, and done lots of normal things. I’ve had outbursts of grief, where the ache of missing my baby took over my heart. I want her back so very badly.

But mostly I’ve had this quiet spot of sadness in my heart. People ask me how I’m doing, often people I don’t know well, and what am I supposed to say? So I tell them that I’ve been better, but we’re doing okay. And sometimes my mouth smiles, but my eyes don’t.

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by chandelle

The rumors are true. I’m a privileged white person. And, like most white people, I don’t really know it.

I mean, I know it, in theory. I know that jobs, education, and social services are all more accessible to me as a white person. Like most white people, I support equal rights unequivocally. I am aware of our country’s history of minority oppression, an abuse that continues to this day in subtler forms. When my parents asked Jeremy and me, as an engaged couple, what we would do if our future daughter brought home a black boyfriend (notice they did not ask about a son bringing home a black girlfriend), we looked at them as though they’d sprouted a couple of extra heads. It wouldn’t occur to me to question the validity of a mixed-race couple. At least, in theory. (more…)

It’s that time again!

Date: Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Time: 6:45 PM
Where: home in Laguna Beach (Orange co., halfway between San Diego & L.A.)
Hosted by: Jeannine

Leave a comment or email us if you need directions.

Background- Born and raised in Georgia, deep in the heart of the bible belt. Asked if I had horns by the first grade. Currently living in Southern California where my bishop is reading political statements about gays and marriage from the pulpit- I mean encouraging words about eternal families. Once upon a time, I was a true Molly. Having experienced “Sister Bully” and confusion about church history/deep doctrine, I am currently on hiatus from callings and the three hour block. Raised by two goodly, but eccentric parents. I gave painful birth to four messy, but lovable children. Married to one wonderful, but bewildered husband.

by: Pani Dora

I can remember exactly when Sister Bully entered my life. A new family had moved into the ward and didn’t know many people. They asked to come over for a visit to see the work we were doing on our backyard. While visiting with them, I turned to the wife and asked where she would be working. She looked surprised. “I don’t work” she coldly responded. I scrambled mentally. Did I inadvertently stumble on some issue about women working?

I backtracked a little. Here was an obviously well educated woman so I tried a different tack. “Getting a degree while married and raising a family is tough. Where did you get your degree?” The frozen look on her face and her response chilled me. ” I don’t have a DEGREE” was the forced reply from her lips. The heavy emphasis on the word degree let me know that I was once again a conversational idiot. I tried to smooth things over, but our visitors excused themselves. When they left I felt unsettled. I had this terrible feeling that I had unintentionally made an enemy, one that was dangerous. (more…)

If you live in the Salt Lake downtownish area and are interested in learning how to grow your own food, please join us in the Rose Park Community Gardens. We meet Wednesday nights from 6-8 pm and Saturday mornings from 8-10 or 11am @ 877 N Cornell Street (1525 W). It’s just behind the Day- Riverside library and along the Jordan River parkway (east side)

We need you to make this work. (more…)

Most of the time, my husband Eddie and I lead a very companionable existence. We have similar tastes in movies, books and reality television shows. He doesn’t complain when I take off for three hours on Saturday morning to go running or publish intimate details of our lives on the internet, and I don’t whine too much when he checks the score of the British Open from his phone during sacrament meeting or spends too much time at work. We both think that our kids are the cutest, smartest, and generally greatest children on the planet. We both like our Mexican and Indian food hot, and both agree that I can have the first and last (and even all the middle) bites of our shared desserts.

But every four years or so, our similarities get overshadowed by our differences. At first I thought that it was some kind of relationship cycle, you know, a four-year itch or something like that. Then I realized that our periods of discontent always coincided with the presidential elections. You know how how couples are supposed to get more alike the more time they’ve been together? Well, at least when it comes to politics, that’s totally not true at our house. (more…)

I trimmed my fathers nose and ear hairs as his body turned cold. My brothers shaved him and dabbed cologne on his gray face. My mother and I washed him with warm soapy water, as we turned his heavy body on its side the rank smell of feces filled the air, and it just didn’t seem real that we no longer had to carefully dab and cringe at the terrible open bed sore on his bottom because he couldn’t feel it any more. He was gone.

My mother held his face and kissed his lips and wept whispering that she was so glad that he was no longer suffering. But in my selfish heart, I was not glad. I just wanted my dad back. (more…)

We would like to announce the birth of our daughter, Grace.

She was born Saturday, July 19th, 2008, at 6:45 a.m.

She was 1 lb. 3 oz. and 12 inches long.

She died Saturday, July 19th, 2008, at 7:00 a.m.

She will always be with us in our hearts.

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Yesterday I was picking up my kids from the childcare at my co-ed gym, when a stay-at-home dad standing in line behind me grabbed his whining daughter by the arm and told her she was spending the rest of the day in her bedroom.

Now my reaction to this scene should probably have been to ask the dad if I could help in any way, but instead I just started thinking about how so many recent fMh posts were encapsulated in a single experience.

So let’s make a game of it– write a sentence or a small paragraph in which you discuss how one or more recent fMh posts have been relevant to your lives.

Yesterday Al Gore threw down a challenge to America, in particular to American politicians, to end our dependence on carbon-based fuel within 10 years. An ambitious goal, though, considering the enormity of problem, not an unreasonable one. I realize not everybody likes or trusts Gore–fine. But until you can come up with a plan as coherent and doable as this one, I don’t see how you can complain. We owe it to ourselves, our neighbors, and our children to make a mighty effort at cleaning up this mess.

So here is the speech, in case you missed it yesterday: (more…)

In the spirit of a Book Club, but for those of you who, like me, find it hard to make it through an entire book in time to meet a deadline, I want to discuss Henry Lawson’s classic short story, The Drover’s Wife. First, a bit of background.

Henry Lawson is considered a legend of early Australian literature. He is renowned for his dreary realism, for his harsh, unrelenting view of the Bush. With the exception of Banjo Patterson, famous for his epic poem “The Man from Snowy River,” most early Australian authors wrote of the Bush as something foreign and Other, not entirely to be trusted. Contrast this with early American frontier literature, where the frontier is celebrated with unbridled optimism, where it is taken for granted that man will be able to shape it in his own image.

Lawson’s mother Louisa Lawson was a prominent feminist and advocate for women’s rights. While by most accounts Henry had a strained relationship with his mother, she raised him as a single mother after she left her husband, Henry’s father; so it is entirely reasonable to believe that Henry had at least some understanding of the issues surrounding women’s rights in the Victorian era - the suffrage movement, the debate surrounding the public and private spheres, etc. (more…)

We’re still in business. Woo-woo!

The update is, we haven’t had an emergency trip to the hospital in  nearly one whole week (fingers crossed–the last two Thursday nights have watched the two most troubling developments occur). We have the steroid shots scheduled for the last week of July, and the baby is still kicking.

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disclaimer: i’ve asked djinn to do a post for us on this very important subject. these are her words, not fmh’s. whatever your views on birth control, abortion and family planning are, remember to keep it civil. this is a deeply personal subject and i expect you will remember that when commenting. thanks, mfranti

by djinn

Thanks to our friends at Health Reality Check, I found out that on Monday, July 14th, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed regulations to redefine common methods of contraception, such as the pill, the patch, the depo shot, the ring, the IUD, and emergency contraception, under the classification “abortion.” They get away with this by defining pregnancy as beginning at conception (sperm wiggles into egg) rather than implantation. Conception can’t be measured. Fertilization can. Even so, they’re wrong. The pill, the ring, depo shots, and plan B keep the egg from being released from the ovary. They also thicken the mucous making it even harder for any spare sperm to uh, hit it. That is, they prevent CONTRACEPTION, which isn’t pregnancy even under their rather broad definition. (more…)

Remember a month or so ago, I wrote about retiring the girls after about a decade of hard work? Well, maybe I spoke too soon. In Adrienne So’s June 23rd article in Slate Magazine (I know it’s old, but I’ve been on vacation), she helps us think outside the bra– while we usually see breasts as milk makers or sexual objects, they can be used to generate electrical power as well. For a pretty darn funny “analysis” of the article, look in the Opening Panel round here.

My dh has always said that my breasts turn him on, but if they can turn on my iPod too, now that would be cool.

2008 has been my worst year ever.

Constant Nausea, Gall Bladder Surgery, Dead Dad,

And the cherry on top? Idiopathic Gastroparesis.

Which means “weak stomach”, I guess, and means that I digest food very very very slowly and thus feel sick all the time. And there is no cure, no “good” therapy, all the drugs have hideous side effects. Yippee!

So first step: low fat, low fiber diet. Starting with broth and saltines, and working up to (when we get really wild and crazy) white bread, skim milk, and select fruit and veggie juices! For the rest of my life!

So you can forget that curry post people, because I can’t eat it. Or blueberries. Or Zucchinni. Or Cheese. Yes I said cheese! I can’t eat cheese. Ever again!

So how long do I get to be bitter and angry before it starts to get really unattractive?

I’ve decided that I’m going to blame the dog for the gas prices, the housing crisis, inflation, terrorism, my big toe.

If I’ve learned anything from the current occupant and this administration (or any government official), it’s that I can blame anyone for anything and it doesn’t have to make sense. I don’t have an opinion based on anything logical . In fact, I can even deny anything is wrong in the first place and then I don’t have to blame the dog.

But it’s still Bodie’s fault.

And here’s the best part-he doesn’t complain. He just sits at my side with with big eyes and a pink tongue hanging out of his mouth.

Doin’ a heckuva job Bodie!

by Spunky:

We have all been there and seen it. I saw it again today in my ward- spanking a child because they are – you know, being a child, trying to sit in sacrament meeting.
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Today as I was blithely walking into Gospel Doctrine, I saw the teacher and every fiber of my being rebelled. Without a single thought I turned and ran.

She makes me want to rip my hair out. My sense is (new ward to me, just split) that she’s a well-established teacher with a following, ya know. She has an engaging style and she’s smart and she prepares the heck out of those lessons, all very admirable things, I’m sure. She even passes out cookies for the people who read the lesson (and guilt to the people who didn’t). I pretty much cringe at every word that comes out of her mouth. (more…)

Copying Quimby’s bleg for decoration advice, I have a Barnes & Noble gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket and would love to hear your favorite board books for children ages 1-3 years.   I’m looking for both story books and books to help teach my almost one year old numbers, letters and body parts. 

Also, Baby Einstein.  Worth it?  Thoughts? 

In what can only be described as a fit of madness, I let our 2 year old choose our new shower curtain. She wanted rubber duckies. I must have been so overwhelmed by happy mommy hormones, because it wasn’t until I got it home that I realised rubber ducks would not go with my vintage zoological prints. Plastic-looking rubber ducks plus realistically-executed scientific prints equals one funny looking room.

So. Now I want to redo the bathroom to match the shower curtain. Wouldn’t it be easier to get a new shower curtain to match the rest of the room, you ask? Certainly. But I figure, she likes the shower curtain, she should get the shower curtain. (Stupid happy mommy hormones.) And I need your help. (more…)

Holy freaking rollercoaster, Batman!

We didn’t actually have an abruption of the placenta. Just the same one that we found out about Wednesday morning–they think the blood is probably coming from there, but most of the placenta is still well attached and is functioning very well. Which is one big reason the baby seems to be sleeping through all this drama. Yawn, stretch. Kick. What’s the big deal, Mom?

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