Where?

Where does MaMaMade need to be? What stores, online or off? What are your favorite baby stores? What makes a store buyable instead of just browsable? Can you tell I'mtrying not to get a real job working hard now?
See the newest stuff at http://www.mamamadeproducts.com
Note new bath and body stuff coming soon, new pants (oh they are soooo soooo cute) and new shop page design.

ABC noodles

This is her royal highness enjoying some ABC noodles soup. Delicious and Educational. All the cool kids are eating it.
Yes she is sucking it up through a straw. What a gem.

Back from the weekend

This weekend we had a date, Sarah had a dinner/movie with her teacher, we housesat 3 cats, went to a band crab feed, had a visit with Sarah's dad's ex girlfriend's kids and drove home. About 500 miles on the car later, we're home and almost recovered. I feel kind of sick, I think I'm just exhausted. Sarah slept till 9:30 this morning, I didn't have the heart to tell her we missed school. We've had a good time just hanging out today. Put a shelf up over the washer and dryer, did laundry, cleaned floors, unpacked, bought a birthday present for a little boy at sarah's school. Very productive day so far.
Making stuffed salmon and rice for dinner. I'm thinking a romaine salad with pears and feta to go with it. I think I always fall back on that salad, but that's because it's super yummy.

In which I bitch and bitch and bitch

I don't even know where to start. This weekend has been at times great, awful and infuriating.
Let's see, let's deal with the big ones right now.
Bigotry, intolerance, rudeness and racism.
Have I made a mistake moving here? Am I going to be butting heads for life against these things? Is it possible to raise Sarah here in a healthy way?
Bigotry: I made a comment at her preschool last week when I was working. A little girl was playing with the dolls, Sarah was helping, they were trying to decide who would be mom who would be dad, well I say,"Some babies have two mommies, so you both can be the mommies".
Apparently another mom overheard and had issues with it. Issues that she took to the school director who took me aside today and very apologetically brought this to my attention.
It's not the director's fault. It's the other parent's fault for being intolerant and obnoxious. I mean wth, saying a statement of fact "Some kids have two mommies" is not saying, "hey kid, let's get you into lesbianism." Nuff said, I'm still seeing red.

Intolerance: See above.

Racism: At a band festa (oh dear me what have I gotten into) a couple sits across from us and the first friggin comment out of the woman's mouth is "Oh look, she's a partial."
Partial what????
Partial
Partial
I am sputtering still. I did not want to bring it to Sarah's attention, so I kept my infuriated mouth shut. Now I wish I'd said something.

Rudeness: Do people not know how to stand in an orderly line and take turns? Are all children (except mine of course LOL) destined to turn into these piggish horriffic people? If you're offering a service, offer that service in the same way to all people, if you cannot, DON"T DO IT>
GRRRRRRRR

Ex husband was late getting Sarah back. He hadn't fed her dinner. He had had her in a car for at least 2 hours ahead of drop off. We had a 2 hour drive left. With a hungry, tired of being in car, cranky kid. Made a stop at emergency food place for toy and fries. She loved the troll doll that McD's gave her. Promptly gave it a haircut at home though. It's looks really cute.

Finally got home at 9:30 last night. Sarah went to sleep late. We went to sleep late. But she got really upset at the idea of staying home from school, so we went to school. Where I got the news from the director about the comment I made. Just a suckass weekend.

I did have some shopping therapy Sunday. Got a lot of new fabric for MMM, a down and plush throw blanket and a shell vine, a trumpet vine and a bunch of seeds for impatiens balfourii.

I'll leave you with a pic of my lovely front garden for now.

MaMaMade Guestbook

I'm trying to find a place for customers to search reviews and place feedback. This is what I've come up with so far.
www.MaMaMadeProducts.com/guestbook

Any input?

She's back

Yes, mama duck is back in our pool. No little ducklings made it. Looks like she will try to lay another nestful. I'm babysitting this next brood till they are of survival age. This just broke our hearts. Sarah's not awake yet. I am tempted to just lie to her and tell her it's another duck and that ours are safely off in ducky nirvana at the pond.

Working on my website

I'm finally jumping into the world of html. I'm updating my website myself now instead of asking others to do it for me. It's somewhat exhilarating, very scary and kind of cool. Don't worry Becky I downloaded a complete backup of all files on my computer and put one on my servers. Check out my new work http://www.MaMaMadeProducts.com
I put a new pic on the front page, I'm learning how to take better pics. Updated lots of info, just going through and cleaning things up.
Very very proud of myself

Flown the cooop

I'm feeling very sad. Our duckling and mama flew the coop today. Well mama flew and the duckling went under the fence. They promptly fell into the rain drain down the street. A few phone calls later we saved all but one of the ducklings. I thought the 12th duckling had drowned, but unfortunately, I was wrong. We were just walking past that drain and heard his little tweets. I don't know what to do. He's not going to survive without his mama and she and the other 11 ducklings are gone now. There's no way to find them and get them back together. Do I call animal rescue again, get the workers out here, have someone go down the drain again to save a duckling who has no chance of survival? Or do I let him stay down there till he runs out of food (there's a pipe that is out of the water for him to rest in) and know that he won't be killed by a predator? Sigh, this is a big moral dilemma. I haven't told Sarah that I heard him down there, she would cry as if her heart were breaking and I can't handle that. Hell, I'm crying for this little guy now. There's not really a way to save him, he's a mallard and therefore can't be raised domestically here.
What do I do?

Ducklings

A mama duck nested near our sago palm in the planter above our pool. We tried to discourage her from nesting, we floated things in our pool, spent more time out there to make it seem less inviting, but she was determined. Well her determination has paid off. Big time.
We have twelve duckling and a mama duck in our pool now.
They needed a ramp to get in and out of the pool and a ramp to get up to the planter nest. I've been picking snails from the front yard and bringing them as "snacks". Mama duck is very appreciative.
Sarah is loving having the ducks here though. We'll probably let them stay till the ducklings get a bit older and have a better chance of survival.

Smartass

I have a smartass child. She is constantly and consistently blowing my mind.

The other night whilst laying down trying to sleep she kept asking questions. Random questions, why does the turtle have a shell, what is a neutron, why is he jimmy neutron, what is the meaning of life, where was i before i was born kind of questions.

I finally said to her, "Honey, those are great questions, but it is time to sleep now"
Her response, "But I have so many questions and there's so much I need to know."
How does one respond to that?

This morning while scarfing down an omelette (which she quite charmingly calls, omlet doo fromage tyvm LOL) she looked at the clock and said, "oh goodness it's after 8"
which it was
How the holyhell did she know?
She's already telling time on an analog clock. I am soooooooo in for it.

Sacramento Train Museum

This Tuesday we went on a field trip with Sarah's school to the Sacramento Railroad Museum. This was a great place for train freaks. We had such a great time. Frank even took the day off to come with us!