Awww, thanks!

Husband Elect, that makes me smile. I hope that the campaign was not too bruising for him. Were there attack ads?

If you believe (based on the experiences of people around you) that 50% or more of your children are going to die by age 5, then you are likely to have more children to ensure that at least a couple of them survive. The problem, then, is that some people will lose 50% of the children they have, but other people won't…

So far (I'm halfway through the 2nd trimester), I've been a little freaked out by pregnant sex. I've just been so afraid of losing the pregnancy, even though I know that sex can pretty much never, ever cause a miscarriage and there's nothing to be afraid of. But with that fear starting to subside a little, I've been…

Proportionally, they really don't. Out of 300,000,000 Americans, 20 people who exist who might not otherwise is less than a drop in the bucket. Now, if a few thousand families started supersizing themselves, then we'll have something to talk about. Until then, it's really not something to get worked up about.

20 pregnancies here and there actually don't make any difference out of seven billion. We pay attention to the Duggars not because they represent the norm or even a vanguard of some new trend (the trend throughout the developed world tends to be toward smaller families); we pay attention to them because they are odd.…

I've definitely been a Jessica Simpson snarker in the past, but that quote is really sweet. I wish an easy pregnancy and all the happiness in the world.

The initiative went down by 100,000 votes, a pretty solid defeat in a really conservative state. It seems like it's really easy to get people to tell pollsters that they believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases. But then the person goes into the anonymous voting booth and thinks, "What if it winds up…

Right, but that doesn't give you the right to just gun it into people who are standing in your way. If it's true that that's what happened (and, granted, we only have one side presented here), then it's really not okay. A few months ago, a group of douchebag teenagers decided to stand in the middle of one of the…

Yeah, what the hell was that? Way to give your kid a complex around elimination, dude.

Yes. It is absolutely mind-boggling that these people thought these techniques would be effective on kids who probably didn't even have a good grasp on English, let alone the culture and customs in this new country. Punishment is really only effective if you can make the person being punished understand why. …

Having trained two dogs without the use of violence to be halfway decent canine citizens, I can't imagine that hitting is any more helpful with humans. Dogs, I find, respond way better to treats and love when they do something right than to hitting or yelling when they do something wrong.

Hitting a six month old.

I slept my normal seven hours, but I have really enjoyed this leisurely morning. I made a lovely breakfast for myself and my husband, took a longer than usual walk with the dogs, surfed the inernet for a while, made a grocery shopping list for my currently unemployed husband, and will now be leaving for work in a…

I'm sure it's awful to get cut off from your grandchildren. I'm only half done cooking the Falconbaby, and my mother is excited enough for four grandmas. I can't imagine how heartbroken she'd be if I said she couldn't see the kiddo (luckily, I have a great relationship with both my parents and their partners, and…

Santorum, too.

I've been assuming for a while that Cain was just running for president as a way to sell books and increase his speaking fees (isn't he now a motivational speaker when he's not running for president?). He has seemed as baffled by the fact that he's the front runner as any of the rest of us are.

Why do people ask "Do I look fat in this?" if they don't want a real answer? If you suspect that you look fat in something but aren't sure, then ask. If you're just looking for a compliment or a self esteem boost... find some other question that won't leave me insulting you if I misunderstand that you don't want an…

My step-family is Mexican and I kind of like the way that hispanic culture does it. Your name is: [first name] [your father's middle name] [your mother's middle name]. When you get married, you become [first name] [father's middle name] [mother's middle name] de [husband's middle name]. Your children then become…

I have a friend whose husband did this. He never liked his last name and wasn't close to his father. My friend was the youngest of four girls and her father was the only son of an only son. So, her husband took her name and it's worked out great. Plus, he gets to make jokes about his maiden name.