They're HERE! T-shirts that are sure to offend many!

It's a bit of a family secret that I am pretty opinionated. Honestly I feel entitled to an opinion because I'm smarter than most people. And by most people I mean the idiots who don't have the same opinion as I do. What? Don't judge me for judging you.

Lately in the news there is this huuuuge controversy surrounding whether or not it should be employers or insurance companies who provide female employees with free birth control. Many Catholic run hospitals and universities shat their pants at the thought that they may have to offer such a service, after all, isn't everyone who works at a Catholic establishment Catholic? The italics, in this case, indicate biting sarcasm. Personally? I think that religious establishments need to keep their Bible out of their employees' underwear. No one is asking them to kill a baby, they are just asking that women receive the reproductive care they need to prevent a pregnancy, and thus possibly an abortion. It really doesn't seem like rocket science.

Anyhoo.

It did not go unnoticed that the "expert" panel on birth control consisted solely of men. Mostly clergy. Hmmm...

I find it extremely offensive that any religious institution deems it appropriate to dictate to the women of (and not of!) their faith what they are and are not allowed to do to prevent pregnancy. That being said, I have designed some t-shirts. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to steal the images and make them into a real shirt, since I do not have an online store. I'll be the first to admit that these are pretty awful, I only have MS Paint and have no idea how to use it very well=(

Do you like these? Make some of your own and post them in the comments!

The whole "stay at home mom" thing sounded SO GOOD in theory... in practice is another story.

I am going to be quite frank: I suck at being domestic. I love a clean house and baking cookies, but those aren't really enough to qualify anyone as "house frau of the year." I don't really like to cook, cleaning up after others makes me insane, managing my time effectively to complete more than a few tasks is a skill that escapes me entirely and honestly being clinically depressed and having ADD don't help matters much. Toss a kid into the mix and I am pretty fucking proud of myself that Ayla gets three meals (with two snacks!) during the day and has a bath every night. I mean, come on... I shower at night so I can stay in bed an extra ten minutes in the morning, if I shower at all. Yeah. I've learned that, at least for me, it is impossible to have a clean self, a clean house and a clean kid all at the same time. You just sort of have to choose. I usually choose either clean house or clean kid, because I can just shower before bed (as is my habit most nights anymore...) and all I have to do prior to putting on makeup is wash my face which only takes like a minute. Hardly the strenuous rigamarole of an actual shower.

I digress.

A source of tension between hubby and I is my inconsistent "performance" when it comes to the housewifey duties such as cooking and cleaning. Anthony is all like "The house is a mess!" and I'm like "Whatever dude, do you feel like cleaning it? Because I sure as shit don't." and then it sometimes turns out he does feel like cleaning it which makes me feel like a douche-wagon so then I end up feeling all gross and guilty and insisting he just let me do it all. It's like he's some sort of Jedi. All jokes aside, the whole inconsistent thing is a combination of ADD and depression. ADD makes it hard for me to start tasks (finishing? No problem!) and the depression makes it difficult to even consider starting and following through on anything more than Ayla-oriented tasks.

The unfortunate side-effect of both of these disorders is that once things pile up, it is pretty much impossible for me to tackle these tasks solo. So dishes overfloweth from the sink, my hair gets greasy, the living room is strewn with Ayla toys and no one has any clean clothes to wear. Not fun for anyone.

I've decided that I would have an easier time being a stay at home mom under the following conditions:

-I get medicated for depression (ADD as well if symptoms do not improve with just an antidepressant)
-I continue interning and working
-I get some help around the house everyday, even if it is only for a few minutes
-The cats stop leaving fur everywhere (bitches I am going to shave the hell out of you!)
-I get "me time" everyday to workout or even leave the house if I wanna for an hour
-MOAR CANDLES
-Netflix (what? Sometimes I just wanna veg, yo.)

I think that only like...2... of those things is actually plausible.

The main thing I can't shake off is this feeling of disappointment in myself. After all, many women love being stay at home moms and do it their whole lives after having a kid and are perfectly content to have lots of babies and care for them at home. Why can't I do that? Why don't I get that measure of satisfaction? Ayla is growing so rapidly, she learns so quickly and I love it when she learns something new... but even so, part of me yearns to be working, to finally start up my business and get cracking at finishing a degree!

I recently decided that while women in general are sort of "designed" to be mothers, that there are those of us who are designed to be a different sort of mother. We aren't less maternal or less nurturing, we aren't snobby or self-righteous, we are just different from women who make it their career to raise their children. As a child of a highly educated woman who continued to work and climb the ladder, I know it is possible. I can only imagine that my mother would have lost her mind if she had had to be a full-time stay at home mom. Some of us just can't sit still that long!

With another baby due in about a month and Ayla nearing her second birthday, I am being forced to adjust my long and short term goals to accommodate raising the new baby until she is old enough to enter daycare at least part-time. This means my career and school are on hold for about another two years. As I am wrestling with yet another delay in my future plans, I also wrestle with what can only be described as a sort of stigma (though perhaps it is only in my eyes that it is a stigma.) On the one hand are the full-time stay at home moms who don't understand why I would possibly not want to make being a mom my sole purpose, and on the other are the career women who do not understand waiting two years (that's what a nanny is for!) I feel as though no matter what I choose, I am subject to judgement, and that makes me very uncomfortable.

This unending inner conflict sort of feels like this.

Regardless, I am at least 30% certain that what I am doing is the best thing for my kids, which in the long run is the only thing that really matters. I am sure others would disagree, but really when you think about it, almost everybody disagrees with somebody. So meh.

ANYHOO. I have a funnier post in the works. If you like t-shirts and vaginas then you will love what I am crafting. Or hate it. I'm not really sure.

In My Castle I'm the Effing KING... Which is why you probably shouldn't spout bigoted nonsense until *After* you're off of my property.

I've been told by very reliable sources that I am kind and tolerant (these same sources also say that I am nine types of crazy) but even I occasionally lose my shit. Remember sis in law who is suuuuuper ditzy? Well, her brain to mouth filter is broken (or maybe her brain is just broken) and from time to time some really offensive stuff falls out of her mouth. I've been struggling with this for a while, because I don't wanna like... correct her... or something lest it crush her soul. I don't really wanna just sit there and thus encourage her to spout ignorant idiocy either. Just as I was straddling the fence on this delicate issue, she deigned it necessary to offer me some parenting advice. She has no children.

At first I thought it was sort of sweet... but she wouldn't shut up. What started it me mentioning in passing how my daughter is a really light sleeper. Sis in law said something along the lines of "Oh, well if you don't get them used to noise when they are really tiny then that probably makes them light sleepers." That may or may not be accurate, and I said as much and followed it with the following, "But I used to hold Ayla while I cleaned, have her sleep on the couch with the TV on and she slept in our room with Anthony snoring for like 7 months... It isn't really that she was never exposed to a lot of noise, she just reached a point where she became unable to sleep through a lot of noises."

It didn't end there. She wouldn't let it go. She insisted that I had not done a good enough job of "getting her used" to noises and then went on to suggest that I be noisy when she is trying to sleep so that she'll learn to sleep with noises going on. I tried to laugh it off, but she just kept repeating that shit over and over until I had to physically remove myself from the room. No amount of reason gets through to this person. Critical thinking escapes her entirely. Couple that with a complete lack of knowledge of how babies and toddlers develop and you have what I was up against. I am not often in situations where my own critical thinking and reasoning ability don't lend themselves to a resolution, so you can imagine my distress.

How I wish the evening had just ended there. But no. She then chose to go on a tangent about Muslims. I wish I were making this up. Apparently, a friend of hers read somewhere that they just kill each other all the time and that they read in the Quran somewhere that killing infidels is good. It still didn't end there. We own a copy of the Quran, we have many books on religion, and I asked her if she would like to borrow it. She looked horrified. I guess looking in the holy book of another religion turn Catholics into pumpkins or something? I tried to explain to her what Islam actually was, and gave her an abundance of examples of how it and Christianity are similar, as well as very bluntly stating that extremists in every religion (including Catholicism) have done some atrocious things to others. Again, she wouldn't let it go. Her entire argument was "Something I saw on TV once" and "Something my friend read" and we just couldn't get around it.

I was fucking furious. Who the hell comes into another person's home, gives them parenting advice, spouts stupid ignorant nonsense about a belief system they admittedly don't understand and then refuse to hear any damned reason?! It's like she is completely deaf to educated arguments! (I would make a Republican joke, but I don't want to be too offensive.)

This all may seem like a small thing to others, but to me it truly is the straw that broke the camels back. I've made a decision that if given a choice, I will opt to not be in her company, even if it means removing myself and my daughter from our home while she is over. I certainly do not want her to be an influence in our children's lives. Anyone who is that close minded and intentionally ignorant has no place around my children. I know. It sounds really harsh. I am adamant that our children not be raised in a bubble and that they learn as much about as many things as they can. I feel that being around intentionally ignorant people will only serve to frustrate them as well as stunt them when they are younger.

Sorry. This has been more of a rant than an actual post. I promise I'll get back to posting funny shit soon. This was just really bothering me and making me crazy. You know how it is.