Writing, DVDs, and A Word From Our Sponsor

I keep thinking: "Soon, I'll be able to write real, literary stuff in the blog." Then days & days go by and I just don't have the time to think of literary stuff. I wrote a speech a few years ago about what it takes to be a woman writer, and much of it was thinking about the differences between men & women with the leisure to write, to spend so much solitary, somewhat selfish time writing and thinking. I've heard of some women who say that having kids around helps with the writing. I've heard some say that they simply cannot think around the kids and they hinder the writing.

For me, I believe that when things settle down, Maia & Sean will provide things to write about other than the obligatory "ooh, look at what cute thing he/she said did pooped ate crawled smiled today"... but for now, that's really all I've got for you. Not a lot of literary stuff going on in my head. I read a paragraph or so of a book I've been reading for about a month every time I get a chance... but that's not so often.

On that note, things are going great.

The baptism went really well; it was great seeing family; they were perfect angels all weekend.* They are laughing like crazy now, and they adore it when you blow a raspberry at them and are trying to figure out how to do it themselves. They stick their tongues out, and know that it has something to do with moving the tongue, but haven't quite got the mechanisms down. They are almost sleeping through the night-- down at about 9:30 till about 4 or 5, then a feeding that lasts them till 8 or 9. Then one more feeding where they'll sleep for a couple of hours till they're "up for the day." It's heavenly to sleep most of the night, although I still have to get up and "pump"-- milk myself or else have trouble. The cool thing? I produce so much milk I'm actually donating it to a milk bank that sends it to preemie &/or sick babies. I donated 230 ounces last week, and I still have a nice supply of my own for my own needs. The freezer is full, and I get more every day (about 70 ounces a day sometimes. And they eat about 30 ounces each, so you see the surplus I have right now).

I've been listening to/watching these great DVDs** put out by HBO. If you have babies/toddlers, I highly recommend them. I think that the whole cause/effect thing about babies watching classical music and it making them smarter is not really there-- I think people who spend the time & energy to have their kids watch classical (and or any kind of good) music are probably more educated & smarter in the first place so their kids are smarter as a result of good genes. But these DVDs are too cool anyway. I really love the Cow singing a Puccini song to the Taurus constellation on the "Music" version, and the one where artists & paintings "Paint" each other, morphing sort of into each new painting, which starts off with Frida Kahlo.

One can't and shouldn't let the TV be a babysitter. But sometimes it sure helps to have something that will keep them happy for the three minutes it takes you to walk to the bathroom, do your business, and get back to entertain them. And these cool DVDs do that and then some. If you get them, play with the baby with them, and learn something yourself by putting the version on that has the informational label/popups. The music they choose is very soothing, and I can listen to it for a while without getting crazy. And I'm sure I'm going to have to!!


*I'll leave the dangling modifier because both subjects of the sentence were angels. :)


**Robotnik once asked me "what's with the "ads" on your blog; do you get a commission or something?" And in a sense, yes, I do. The links I put up are through my academic/book reviews website associate ID number. If someone buys a product clicking on that link, I do get a small referral fee. On the website, it barely pays for the hosting fees, so I don't feel too bad about it. On this blog it's a matter of cool factor plus laziness. It would take much too much effort for me to get a picture of the DVDs and create a non-referral type link to it. I figure you'll live if I but you with an occasional product link since I also pay money to not have the Blogger bar and blogger ads on my blog. So, there you go. :)