Election

          I won't pretend to write some educated post regarding politics here since my knowledge is comparable to that of a child, and most foreigners probably know more about American policy than I do but it's hard not to have opinions on everything happening at this time whether or not it is accurately founded.  I would say that 98% of my understanding of the candidates stem from watching the debates which makes about as much sense as drinking Diet Coke and calling it healthy.  All that the debates consist of are one person claiming something, while the other declares it untrue over and over and over.  I know I should learn more about politics and muster up enough motivation to care, I know that even though I live in Utah where there was the greatest discrepancies between candidate votes, I should still probably vote (confession: I didn't.) because it is a right and privilege that others previous have sacrificed to make happen.  I know that the mindset of 'whoever is president will never really affect me to a point where I am aware of it' is extremely egocentric and ignorant.  I applaud the people who year round educate themselves on policies being passed and the issues at hand but at the same time, those who are most involved with politics often come across as extremely polarizing and well bitter and I don't necessarily find that an effective method of communication or education.  I have enough cynicism in my humor that adding more cynicism to my world view might be overkill.  Why are people involved with politics so mad?  Is this a gross generalization?
          It's been very interesting reading people's comments on Facebook after the election - some wallowing in the pit of despair, and others elated!  But even those ecstatic seem more pleased by ones loss than ones win.  The negativity still rears it's ugly head! But what is most interesting are the vast numbers of "friends" on there who are so impassioned by politics (at least for 48 hours).  If one of the biggest critisisms of the President is that he didn't do much, that there was little change then how can you be so so upset?  Is this naive of me to think?  It just seems like there was a lot of talk that the two candidates varied little, one slightly to the left, one slightly to the right but again I openly admit that this is where my complete and total lack of understanding of the two men shines through.  I don't want it to seem that I am promoting an Ignorant is Bliss philosophy.  I respect and aspire to be one who has made and continues to form educated decisions and opinions based on something greater and more substantial than party lines, however I just simply cannot understand why that is continually accompanied by negativity.
          Let me reiterate that I encourage political opinion and applaud political action and that my lack of effort and apathy is born out of, well laziness really and it's pathetic.  I believe that thinking critically is important and healthy.  That disagreements are inevitable and that's fine.  However, I do believe that when your attitudes, beliefs, and words in general are laced with cynicism and consistantly antagonistic then your ability to inform and thus create change are halted and impede progression.  And that you lose your ability to have productive conversations with anyone.  And then you become mad for the sake of being mad.  My message is this, be a little more optimistic, be a little more grateful that life is pretty OK, help those around you, and educate yourself for the sake of being educated and informed and not just so you have fuel to bring to the next disagreement.               


   

Babies grow up.

These days, Lola rarely snuggles me. Gone are the days when she'd take a nap on my chest let alone lay her head on my shoulder. She too busy looking around searching for food. Now my only ploy is to wear her out completely so that she has no other option but to fall asleep while I'm holding her. So when these moments do happen, it's easy to stop and enjoy it because they will only become less frequent.

It reminds me of the poem that was up in our house while growing up that says:

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow for babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow, so quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.

Never truer words.

Books

Well, I finally joined a book club appropriately titled "Sh*t girls read." I've always wanted to be in one and now that I have ample time, it works out perfectly. My guess is, it's probably one of the more casual book clubs - there are about 25 girls on the email chain and about 7 of us that show up to the meeting. And out of those 7, maybe 3 of us actually read the book so when we get together, we spend 10% of the time talking about what we read and 90% of the time just catching up, hanging out, and making fun of each other. But that's cool with me. Keeps me motivated to read and I always have plans I look forward to the first Thursday of each month. We've only read two books so far and both have been really good. First, The Nazi Officer's Wife. A true story about this Jewish woman who survived the holocaust. During which, she hid her identity, falsified her papers and married this German man who went to war fighting for the Nazis. One of those incredible stories displaying a person's will to live and making any "struggle" I have, seem laughable. Second, we just finished Shadow of the Wind. A mystery/crime type about this boy who stumbles upon this books that he falls in love with. He tries to find more books and information on the author only to discover that all traces of him and his books have been destroyed dun dun duuuuuuun. It was a really good story and is kinda fun to read about a character's love for books. I recommend and found it to be quite the page turner. Now we are onto By the River of Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho so you know there will be some major introspection/self reflection going on during this one. I wish I could say that I was one of those kids that loooooooved to read growing up. Unfortunately, I can't. Just wasn't really into it. In elementary when you could order books from those magazines, sure I would get a couple Goosebumps books, but generally I would opt for the pages of stickers or puppy posters instead. Yeah, kinda a lame kid was I. And then in high school, I took American Wilderness instead of Honors Humanities because the curriculum included a couple backpacking trips which was awesome but I missed out on a lot of the high school classic reads - Jane Eyre? nope. Of Mice and Men? nope. Lord of the Flies? Nope. A real shame. Whenever I meet a well spoken, overtly intelligent girl, I always assume that they were big readers growing up, and I'm pretty much always right. There is no doubt a clear correlation. Within the last 10 years or so, I've been trying to make up for that though and now I can confidently say, something that had little appeal to me growing up has become a real, genuine love. So...progress I guess.

Seven.

Our girl is 7 months old today. She's not even a baby anymore. She's a freaking kid. And I have a feeling she's gonna be a chatterbox when she starts learning words cause she babbles like crazy now. I guess I talked a lot as a kid and drove my mom nuts. So maybe it's payback. John and I went on an over-nighter for our 2 year anniversary and left Lo with Amanda. All we did while we were gone was talk about Lola. Anyway, maybe to celebrate this chronological milestone, we'll watch Seven as a family. Just kidding.

Mexico Town

Back in February, our little fam went south of the border to Mexico with the Two Talls and Two Tall's bro and wife. It was a cliche springbreak choice and we were totally happy about that. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the trip, all pretty much just of us because lets face it, who cares about scenery when you can look at the Malfattos instead.

Lola's first swimming lessons. She nailed the butterfly.


Beaching and eating. This pretty much sums up the trip.


Just feeding my baby while walking along the beach.


The diving down there was surprisingly pretty incredible. We even managed to make it work so that Lola could come while we all dove without having to leave her alone with Big Panda, our sea captain.


While we were going from the first dive site to the second, we spotted some dolphins. Big Panda turned the boat around and positioned us right in their path. We all jumped in the ocean and swam as hard as we could towards them. There were two at the top and about 15 swimming below along the bottom of the ocean. One of them came right up to us and John even touched it. And then John tried to race the dolphin. I'll tell you what, and I don't say this very often publicly, but my man was looking pretty good swimming among those animals. Here is Big Panda taking us to the dolphins. Andale Big Panda!



Lola on the other hand, was not impressed. She was like, 'dolphins? who cares. I need a tan.'


It use to really bother me that John preferred the shade to the sun. Now that we have an extremely fare-skinned kid (thanks me!) who will probably get burned going from the house to the car during the summer, I love this quality about John. I can get my rays, and he gets the shade and takes care of our girl. A real compromise.


Lo's first time in the ocean.


I think you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who is as crazy about his little baby girl as John. It is probably the sweetest thing. Now. But I have a feeling it's going to be major trouble in later years..


Lola hasn't stopped talking about sombraros or drinking horchata since we've been back. Looks like we'll need to plan another trip down there, huh John?

Two years.

Frisbee with the gang, Peruvian food with friends, watching Chopped while eating dessert, a sleeping sweet girl, and a baby-less weekend getaway in a couple days? Life got a lot better after I snagged this guy. Two years down, eternity to go? No sweat.

Interlude!

Lola is 4 freaking months. 1/3 of a year. She's rolling over, she slept through the night last night, she can take her pacifier out of her mouth and put it back in, she smiles like crazy, and is turning into quite the flirt. That's all I can ask for. She has exceeded all expectations. Well done good child.




Baby blog? Guilty indeed. She's really the only interesting part of my life these days so if it's way boring to you, then I completely don't blame you. But she might.