CNN is still red-bannered and growing more awful by the moment, and it’s time for me to stop reading it for awhile, since no one has any concrete information yet and news outlets have reached the point of “Let’s put anything up on our site and verify it later!” I cannot abide that, especially the thought that parents, unable to reach the Virginia Tech website for news from the university itself, might be reading and feeling worse and worse, not knowing if their child is safe. It makes me ill, the irresponsibility for the sake of ratings (but ratings drive advertising, and as Don Imus will tell you, most decisions are made on the back of the almighty ad dollar).

So: other news that’s not violent, sad, heartbreaking or scary:

The origin of the Easter bunny! A Pagan Goddess named Eostre - isn’t it always the goddesses who are fabulous?

Water everywhere doesn’t look like much when what was reported as 1 student dead (tragic in and of itself) turned into 22 casualties a few hours later at Virginia Tech.

Random bullshit violent heartlessness again? Why would anyone do something like that?

The flooding in New Jersey is national news. Hello, folks! We got a shitfuckton of water last night!

The water in our basement receded nicely, leading us to suspect we have drains in places where we can’t see them, or that there’s a big ass crack in the lowest part of the basement where the water all ran out. Either way, less water = Happy Hubby and Me. It’s still freaking raining, of course, and delays are huge all over the area from planes to buses to trains and subways, so the commute in might be worse than the commute out.

I didn’t even try the subway this morning, since the line I use runs through a station in Brooklyn that frequently floods, and my stop is the one right before the flooded one and is therefore likely to be skipped altogether if they reroute the train. By some miracle I got a cab. It’s like parking karma- you know those moments when you find a fantastic parking space? Getting a cab on a rainy, cold morning is the same feeling, half “I’m unbearably lucky” and “Who do I have to thank for this moment of awesomeness?” I was warm, dry, and not as late as I could have been had I taken the subway, which is of course flooded and delayed now that I look at the updates online.

However, we’re more fortunate than some folks, who had measurable feet of water in their basements, coupled with blown boilers, no heat, no hot water, and no pumps left in the Home Depot to get all that dreck the hell out of the basement. After this storm leaves (which now looks like sometime next month, OMGWTFBBQ) we’ll deal with the leakage and the water.

And we’ll come up with some other plan for adding on to the house, since our tiny spark of an idea to refinish the basement and make it into an older kids’ hangout? SO not happening now! 

1. It has been raining steadily and heavily since dawn. We’ve probably received at least 3” of rain. There’s a puddle in the basement that’s not rising at an alarming rate, and the sump pump is working fine, but I’m irritated that there’s yet another leak we didn’t find. And according to Hubby, the water just flowed on into the basement like someone popped a zit and burst the dam.

2. Fukui is yodeling in the kitchen like he hasn’t eaten in weeks, and it’s still a half hour until dinner time. He sounds like he’s dying.

3. It’s cold and wet and will be until Tuesday.

4. It’s April, it’s 40 degrees, and we’ll probably still have the furnace running through June 28th.

Things that are making me laugh:

1. Freebird is working on learning the alphabet, though he can identify a good number of letters already. He just walked up to Hubby with a cut out E and R, to which Hubby said:

“Yes! ER used to be a very good show, and Mommy and I liked it very much. Then it got stupid and some guy got his arm sawed off by a helicopter, and then that helicopter came back a year or two later and ate him, and that’s when it got really really stupid.”

2. I have chocolate chip cookies to eat in the pantry. I can eat them whenever I want. I might have one now.

3. I am warm, inside, and do not have to go outside right now. Also, my feet are dry.

4. The Bird is in a good mood, and wants to play with his letters and numbers, which is a really fun activity. TWO! THREE! SIX! YAAAAY!

5. We went to an indoor playground this morning, where the Bird exhausted himself. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s like Gymboree, only with a Jersey Perm and stonewashed jeans. A little lower in style but very very fun for him. And a row of rocking chairs for the parents, AND free wifi! 

I have a friend who is an ubermom, in that she works more-than-full-time, and commutes the same distance I do, and also says things like, “And I made lentil stew for the girls yesterday, and with brown rice that’s a complete protein! They loved it!”

This conversation happened about an hour after Hubby and I went to Costco and bought, among other things, a 5lb. bag of chicken nuggets (also, for the record, a protein) for the Bird. The Bird’s dinner has never included lentil stew, though he is a huge fan of PB&J, and will rock in his highchair screeching should he see the Earth’s Best cheese crackers shaped like Elmo and Big Bird’s craniums - prompting our nickname for them: Elmo Heads.

Now, normally I’m a live-and-let-live kind of girl, and what other moms do doesn’t really bother me because no one lives the exact same life I do, and so my choices are made based on what is best for my family. So far, everyone here is happy and healthy and has no complaints. The Bird definitely likes those chicken nuggets.

But for some reason that conversation has really stuck with me, and I’m wondering what more I could do to make sure the Bird gets a diet made up of foods I prepare. So far he hasn’t liked the leftovers of what I make for dinner, and chows down with hearty enjoyment on what we do serve him (though he’s totally turned off by the hotdogs right now).

Could I make lentil stew and other crock pot dishes if I wanted? Sure. Do I want to? Frankly, no. I don’t. I get X number of hours on the weekend to hang out with him, and Y number of hours in the evenings to relax before bed, and I don’t want to subtract any time from X or Y by standing in the kitchen chopping and mixing in the kitchen when I could be hanging out with him. If I were home full time, maybe. If he were older and had a later bedtime, so that I had more time between the moment we get home and the moment he goes to bed, maybe. If I weren’t pregnant and still tired (and hello, it’s the 2nd trimester and I’m looking forward to that return of energy… hellooo? Energy? Where you at?!) and in love with the concept of curling up on the sofa, maybe.

I’m frankly surprised at myself that I’ve fallen into a compare-myself-to-ubermom mode. Usually I’m very much able to brush off those feelings and say, “Ok, great that it works for her, but that wouldn’t work for me.” Lately I’m remeasuring everything I do, and running into feelings of guilt for not wanting to surrender any of the time I have to relax and hang out with the Bird or with Hubby or even just with myself in order to concoct perfect proteins in the slow cooker.

Somehow, though, I think it’s more important that I work on those feelings of guilt about choosing myself sometimes than it is that I start chopping an onion to craft those perfect proteins. Proteins aside, so far we’re doing just fine. I have to remind myself that Hubby, Freebird, and I are all happy. And that’s perfect enough.

Can someone explain to me why most of the maternity tops I find have necklines so low I think my boobs are liable to fall out? Is there some odd expectation that every pregnant woman wants to show off her bodacious (bigger) ta-tas? I have on a new top that I ordered on clearance, and I’m putting it through a one-day test on a weekend to see if I can wear it to work without showing too much cleavage. From my angle, looking down, I think 3/4 of my breasts are showing.

I’m going to go tell Hubby that his job today is to monitor the cleavage, and tell me if I show “too much for work.” I wonder if he’ll mind.

And I wonder if there’s a manufacturer of maternity top fichus I could find.

Prooving yet again how much the Rutgers basketball team and their coach, Vivian Stringer, rock the tri-state area: “These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture. It is not just Mr. Imus. And we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change.”