I am soooooooo glad I finally got this done.  With Junior3 on the way it was time.

Before, and this is with four inches or so cut off a few months ago.

After1 and After2

I have a love/hate relationship with mangoes. They are absolutely my favorite fruit bar none and I would like to be able to share them with my kids. However, I first tried them in Ecuador, at a sustainable tourism lodge located along the shore of the Napo river, which is part of the Amazonian river basin (though that's not really saying much since that is most of South America.) I have not been able to find a fresh mango that lives up to that experience yet and can only rarely find one that I consider even "good". I am a frustrated mango lover.

I was in various parts of Ecuador for a month during college and I had some of the most memorable food experiences there, including mushroom soup with popcorn sprinkled on top (fabulous) and guinea pig (there was still orange and white hair on the skin and it tasted like duck, which is to say, like cardboard.) While at the lodge we had some wonderful meals including a lentil stew over white rice and free range chicken (it may have been walking past our beds the night before) with cilantro. Everything was grown within a few miles of the lodge using sustainable agriculture methods. If you ever go to Ecuador I can't recommend the Yachana Lodge enough. They had only been open a few years when I went, but from what I understand they have grown considerable and now include a sustainable agriculture high school for the indigenous tribes and a fair trade consortium to facilitate the sale of the locally grown cacao. And the guy who started it was from Kentucky, go fig.

Anyway, back to mangoes. These were served often, sliced into bowls with lemon juice. They were a golden orange that was almost luminous. Of course, all of the food was being served in a room with no walls, so that helped the effect. They were perfectly ripe and sweet like honey. I fell in love.

Once back in the states I was hoping to try to replicate some of the food I had enjoyed. The popcorn soup didn't work out very well and the lentil stew stew turned out alright but was never exactly what I was looking for. But mangoes? Sheesh, they have them at the grocery store, how hard could it be?

Turns out that decent mangoes are incredible hard to buy. I have been burned repeatedly by buying what seems like ripe to me, slightly soft but not squishy. Though I finally learned the most important clue, NO WRINKLES ON THE SKIN. Can't stress that enough. Anyway, now I try to pick firm ones and take them home and wait. But I suck at picking when to cut them up. Too early and it's mostly tasteless with a slight tang of telephone pole on a hot summer day. Too late and the skin starts that dreaded wrinkling and the insides disintegrate. Only occasionally have I ever cut open a mango during that magic window. I honestly think that true ripeness in a mango must only last about 36 minutes. Yet, the grocery stores continue to sell them. Am I just mango challenged and everyone else out there knows something I don't, or was I spoiled while in Ecuador and now what everyone considers a decent mango I think of as turpentine flavored?

You can tell my thoughts often dwell on the big questions in life. ;)

Occasionally I try to break out of my chronic posting block. Let's give it a whirl again!

Today is my thirty second birthday..again. For the past year I have been telling everyone who asked "why, I'm 32!" This lasted until a few months ago when a friend realized that can't be right since I'm only one year older than her. I had a few really, really bad minutes trying to do calendar math in my head before I realized that I was actually going to be 31 for two more months, and that I had missed getting to say it for the entire year.

This is not actually my worst moment age-wise. When I met my future mother-in-law for the first time I was very nervous. So nervous that when she asked in a very friendly way "So, G. How old are you?" I said to her, in a flash of panic, "19." The look on her face as she turned to her then 31 year old son was a clear invitation to him to explain why he was dating a teenager. He leans over to me and hisses "You're 23!." My relationship with her could only go up from there.

Birthdays are not huge events for me. I've always enjoyed them, but as I've aged they have not morphed into days of transcendental dread like I was afraid they would. At least not yet. I will let you know in twenty years if I still feel that way. My mother always seemed very blase about aging until about five years ago. Of course, I think she hates the fact that she has been sick repeatedly in that time, though she has recovered fairly well each time. The only spare organ she has left is one of her kidneys after losing her gall bladder and appendix. Hell, two of the ones she still needs are currently non-functioning as she tries to recover from her adrenal gland shutdown. I look at my parents and I see how much of their lives were spent without their own parents. I think my aging bothers me most when I realize that it brings me ever closer to losing them.

On that note: Happy Belated Valentines!

This is a excerpt from the Slate.com review of Mamma Mia.

"That's assuming, of course, that the movie can herd women into theaters in anywhere near the numbers Sex and the City did earlier this summer. Meryl Streep has said about her twentysomething children that her singing, dancing lead role in Mamma Mia! "will mortify them. They'll have to move to Alaska or someplace." The same may be true of young female audiences whose idea of cool doesn't include a 59-year-old woman dancing on a rooftop in overalls to the strains of the title song. But you know what? Those people can kiss Meryl's denim-clad ass. What's great about Mamma Mia! is its complete disconnect from cool, its conviction that middle-aged women in overalls (or spangled bell-bottoms) are the hottest thing going. The movie's spirit is somewhere between High School Musical and Hedwig and the Angry Inch; it's at once dorkily wholesome and proudly slutty. It posits a transgenerational, pansexual paradise that's so deeply queer that when one of the characters comes out of the closet late in the movie, the revelation seems superfluous. We've just spent the last 90 minutes singing ABBA while line-dancing on docks in snorkeling flippers, and you're telling us you're gay? Big whoop."

I don't know why but I thought that was hilarious. Now I want to go see the movie.

Awesomeness. Made my DAY!

Well today was a success...in most respects. I was watching a ten week old baby as well as my own two girls. I have to admit I was very nervous about watching someone else's child. I am comfortable as a mom but I have very little experience with other peoples children. Also, in my mind I was kinda using this as a trial run for maybe having a third baby. Thankfully this baby was just a delight to watch. She ate, slept, smiled at everything and then ate and slept some more. I was very relieved to have to day go so smoothly but this may have not given me an appropriate sense of how hectic another baby could be. My two were very nice babies but even they were rarely this easy. Ah well, I try to keep logic and reason as my watchwords but when it comes to babies I find myself thinking in a very un-Vulcan manner.

However many people that reply to me and re-post this challenge, I will send you something.

It might be something I've made, or something cool from my hidden stash, or a rubber duck, a book I think you will enjoy, or something else that is awesome. Whatever it is, I promise that I will get it to you in 365 days or fewer.

The only thing you need to do in order to participate is to reply to this, AND post this very same thing on YOUR LiveJournal - cause it's fun to give people stuff.

Thanks to trav for starting this.

Today my eldest daughter said that I were her best friend ever! She just leaned over and hugged my arm during lunch and said it. After her being gone last week it was really heartwarming. When D got home we had a nice dinner and we all went for a walk. As we were crossing the parking lot at the end of our street R and I were discussing whether the cars would try to get her. I reassured her that they would not but that we should be careful and hold hands and she shouldn't be afraid. She said she wasn't afraid because she liked the cars. They are her best friends ever! I lasted seven hours at the top!

Well, the offspring and I are home with colds. This about what I expected since R had her first day of preschool last week. Who knows though, the germs, the germs are everywhere. P is the cutest little snotnosed baby you ever saw though. A fever gives her face such a rosy glow.

R is definitely her father's daughter. Over the last few days she has come up the most economical and efficient new imaginary friends. She gets in her car seat and takes off her shoes and socks. She then holds and talks to her feet. Yes, her bare feet. They are her doggies. Specifically "Sandy" and "Sandy's Daddy". She has recently become fixated on the name Sandy for all of her dog toys. So here feet are her puppies. But here's the efficient part. She informs us that she is going to take them for a walk. When we get somewhere we put her shoes and socks back on and she gets out of the car. She then says "Come on Sandy, Sandy's Daddy, lets go for a walk! Let's go! Come on!" Then she runs while talking to her feet. Taking her puppies FOR A WALK! Get it? Freaking hilarious to see her running along, looking at her own feet, coaxing them along.

I've had to convince her that there is no good way to attach leashes. She is disappointed at that.

For the past several days R (my 2 year old) has been playing a new game. In the evenings on the way home she finds the moon out of her backseat window. She then plays "Find the MOON!" As the roads meander or we make turns she looks for the moon and asks "Mommy where's the moon? Where's the moon mommy?" Over and Over again until she finds it. Despite the repetition this has been some of the best interactions R and I have had this week. She's been sick/cranky most of the time.

However, tonight when we got home she wanted to stand in the driveway and look at the moon with me. We looked and laughed together and I told her about it was high in the sky. She says "Let's go to the moon mommy!" I repeated that it was really really high in the sky. I asked how she would get there. She pauses and smiles really big and babbles about "BALLOONS! A balloon mommy! Lets go get a balloon!" Now this a pretty trite mommy story, look-how-precocious-my-child-is type thing. But the part that made it DAMN FUNNY was when I put her down she was shouting about "let's go get a balloon!" and she starts trying to run around to the backyard like 'oh yeah thats where I parked my space traveling balloon'. She stops and turns around all confused and looks at me like 'Mom, hello...the space ballon? Where'd you park it?'

I had to tell her to go ask her dad to get her inside.

So we are back from vacation, my computer is now fixed (thank you Apple warranty for "known defects") and I can finally access my email. Yeah ! I hate being disconnected.

Well, I knew Ripley had been perfecting lots of new skills lately (pulling baskets off shelf, throwing toy/clothes over baby gate to get mom's attention, etc.) but she passed a new milestone today. She can now open the downstairs bathroom door all by herself. NOT GOOD. I caught her trying to drink out of her shampoo bottle. Why? Anyway, until we get some door knob baby proofing contraptions my toddler management system is shot to hell. I know! Lets go to grandma's and let her cook dinner for us.

As of next Friday I am unemployed...or a newly liberated stay at home mom. I'm not sure which yet really. I put in my two weeks this past Monday and this Friday will be my last day. I fell pretty good about this decision, if a little nervous. The only difficult time is when I am at work and enjoying talking to other grown ups. Of course I have spent more time chatting this week than the past six weeks combined. This is the last-two-weeks-of-school-before-summer effect. When I get home I find that I am not looking to going back in next week.

Once I finish this week I am going to start approaching my weekdays with Ripley with more structure. If I commit the same work ethic and effort to staying at home as I did with working I hope to finally feel like I am on top of everything instead of playing catch up every week. Also, I hope to start making connections with other moms. I thought working part time would allow me time to try to make social connections for Ripley and I, but that wasn't the case. Now I hope that we both can make some new friends.

If you comment...

1. I'll respond with something random I like about you.

2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.

3. I'll name something we should do together.

4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (or just me).

5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.

6. I'll leave you a quote that is somehow appropriate to you.

7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.

8. If I do this for you, you must (please) post this on your journal so you can do the same for other people.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three neat facts, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

February 16

600 - Pope Gregory I decreed that "God bless you" was the correct response to a sneeze.
1859 - The French government passes a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in
an attempt to standardize the pitch.
1923 - Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Born:
1941 - Kim Jong-il, North Korean leader
1957 - LeVar Burton, American actor (Yes! Geordi La Forge!)

Died:
2001 - William Masters, American gynecologist and sexologist (b. 1915)

Bonus:
Lithuania - Independence Day (1918)

I feel that being Ripley's mommy has taught me some very important lessons. They are ones that I think most children teach their mothers. And while these points have been made by others before (probably by Erma Bombeck), it isn't until you have a baby that certain truths become self evident:

- When using your fingers to breakup a banana it while split radially into thirds. I didn't know that.

- Thank goodness for Cheerios. Its wholesomeness makes it acceptable to cast it in front of your child like a farmer spreading chicken feed.

- Certain life lessons translate well into motherhood. Log rolling a passed-out puker is a surprisingly handy skill.

- No matter how selfish you feel sometimes all you have to do is think about your child and you know there is at least one person in the world for which you would do anything. This thought is very reassuring when cleaning baby snot off your shirt, again.

- Nothing that your own baby does is ever as gross as what other people’s children do. This doesn't mean cleaning your child’s poop can't be unpleasant, it is the lack of the impulse to retch that is gratifying.

- Watching your child do anything (sleep, eat, play) is hours of entertainment. To teach them a new skill, such as making spit bubbles, is sublime.

- When you are childless, parents talking about their children seemed too preoccupied with them, almost sappy. When you have a child you are surprised that the newspaper doesn't want to show up on your doorstep every day for an update on your baby's progress. Not clearing up this oversight by informing everyone personally is a difficult impulse to overcome.

- A s parent you hope that one day your child will excel you in every way. You want them to be smarter and better looking than you ever were. Watching your child take apart the barricade you constructed to keep her away from the off limts DVD collection you realise your one year old already is. Yeah us!

She was never my favorite but she was a mom.

Your results:
You are Beverly Crusher

Beverly Crusher 75% Will Riker 60% Deanna Troi 60% Spock 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Chekov 50% Data 48% Uhura 45% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 45% Jean-Luc Picard 40% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 35% Mr. Scott 30% James T. Kirk (Captain) 30% Worf 25% Mr. Sulu 20%

A good physician and a caring parent. You are devoted to your children and to your occupation.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

I laughed so hard at this. David almost kicked me out of the room for interrupting his TV viewing despite my attempts to keep my hysterics under control.

Blimp drama

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

Hmmmm. Not what I expected.

All-Around Smart You are all-around smart. Essentially, that means that you are a good combination of your own knowledge and experience, along with having learned through instruction - and you are equally as good with theoretical things as you are with real-world, applied things. You have a well-rounded brain. 0% applied intelligence 0% learned intelligence

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com