Paid Maternity Leave

A friend just posted this petition from Change.org onto Facebook. It's a petition to have paid maternity leave standard for new moms. A good case for signing this petition is made on the Moms in Maine blog.

Listen, I think we all know how I feel about women's rights - or lack thereof. This country's attitude towards women has really been in the spotlight lately, and I hope we use it as a wake-up call to erase the paradigms about working moms, parenting styles, and motherly competition.

We're told the fetus belongs to the government. Once the baby is born, the woman belongs to the employer and the baby belongs to the daycare. Unless something goes wrong, then the mother is to blame. We can't win.

I think a good step forward is to sign the petition and let Congress know we are serious. New Mother rooms are a step forward for many employers, but it's not enough. FMLA is not enough. Using disability insurance coverage as maternity leave is not enough. And listening to the HR employee scold me about getting pregnant before I've been at the company a year is just unacceptable.

I mean, what do the decision-makers in this country want? They don't want to pay for birth control, they don't want us to get abortions, they don't want to pay for maternity leave when we have the baby, and they don't want us subsidizing our income through government programs (WIC, food stamps, etc.) if we can't afford to raise our kids on partial income. Even more, they don't want us being in high positions and earning as much as men.

Just sign the petition already.

Toddler Mayhem

My favorite thing to do is be a mom. I have two beautiful girls that are 3.5 and 10 months. Even better, they love each other. The other day my older daughter said, "Mom, I used to be lonely before sister got here." Sooooo much better to hear than what all the books tell you they will say, which is something along the lines of "Mom, when are you going to take that baby back to the hospital?"

Due to my love for these wonderful beings, it is easy for me to overlook some of the newly budding toddler mayhem coming from my well-mannered daughter. Mostly because she's so dang polite when she does it!

Case in Point:
Last night I was upstairs giving the baby a bath. Generally they bathe together so I can keep an eye on both of them, but sometimes the oldest wants a little independence. I mean really, how can you say no to a 3-year-old that politely asks you to have a turn playing with the bath toys all by herself? So there I was, washing baby hair while trying to keep her in a sitting position, when the toddler comes into the room and says, "Mommy, I cut the string off the rug for you."

Since we have hardwood floors, I have a lot of nice rugs in multiple rooms. Some of them have tassles on either side. Actually, four of them have tassles on either side. Now I am trying to rationalize what she means while keeping an active 10-month-old from either drowning or getting soap in her eyes. My only response was, "Oh? Well you'll have to show me when I am done giving sissy a bath." No yelling, no cussing, but maybe a stink-eye thrown in.

After the baby was done, the toddler got into the tub. She wanted to play for what seemed like a rather long time, and then she delayed a return downstairs with lots of games in her room. Fortunately, what is left of my brain reminded me there were some rugs I needed to inspect. Off we marched down the stairs. This is what I found:

Pretty straight line for
a toddler!

First, we had a talk about what is OK to cut with scissors and what is not. Then we created a new rule in the house about not using scissors unless an adult was in the room to supervise.

Since I was the genius that left a toddler in a room alone with safety scissors, I figured I should get most of the blame. What did I expect? At least it was one of the small rugs and she still had all her hair.

Now it came to cleaning up this well-intentioned mess. I asked my daughter where all the "strings" went. Her reply:

All the tassles neatly
placed in the trash can.