Why yes, I would like some cheese. And definitely some wine.

This isn't a "mommy" blog. I don't have some grand conclusion that affirms all your hard work or decisions or whatever. I don't have beautifully lit photos of baby shoes or whatever.

I could get you a video of her polka-dot butt rocking around in her crib as she fights a nap.

This is real. This is raw. This is beautiful. This is a sad baby who doesn't like naps.

Basically, I'm just here to gripe.

I'm past the days where I wish I wasn't a parent. I have entered the days of wishing I could take a break. You know, maybe use a vacation day, take the day off, go away for the weekend, or even just have her take an hour and a half nap instead of a forty-five minute nap.

I fantasize about it, about giving her to Grammy for the night, but to be honest, if Genevieve doesn't wake me up by like 03:30, I wake up on my own and worry until she does. So I won't be getting any sleep if I gave her away for the night. Which I've already made pretty much impossible by exclusively breastfeeding anyway (partially a desire to give my baby the best, partially pure laziness cause it's super easy). And if Grammy does take her for a few hours, gradually my mind won't think about anything else until she's back in my arms. Heck, if she's in bed asleep for a few hours before I go to bed, I'm already kind of looking forward to her waking up and nursing her.

Until she actually does wake up, of course. What, it's not even midnight! Seriously, baby!

The past couple of days, she's seemed extra fussy. She'll play with a toy until she gets frustrated and throws a fit and nothing makes her happy except to be carried around bounced. I, of course, try and find the reason. Stomach troubles? Teething? Wonder week? Tired? Or, worst of all, a highly opinionated baby with no attention span who needs to be constantly entertained and will be like this for the rest of her life?

That's about the time I want to check out. Pray about it, is advice, but God is probably getting sick of my "please please please let her take longer than forty-five minute naps." He certainly hasn't done anything about it. Although, she has also lived through every night, so he's answering some.

It's just, this Friday, it's hard to have her scream in my ear and know I have to deal with it. Until nap time. Until bedtime. Until tomorrow. Until next week. Until next month. Until next year. Until high school graduation. I don't get to tap out, I don't get to take the weekend off.

Oh sure, "it gets better" and "this too shall pass," but honestly unless it gets better tomorrow, it might as well be high school graduation for me.

Things have gotten better, way better since the beginning. Dang it brain, I wanted to just complain, why do you have to bring that up?

Whatever. Basic point, Princess Fussbudget is hard to deal with and it's too cold outside to go on walks and I want the weekend off. With whine, wine, and cheese.

Edit: I think her naps are getting shorter.

The Two Evils

I posted this on Facebook:

It's almost funny (if it weren't so sad) how every new Clinton cover-up or Trump being disgusting seems so shocking to everyone from the other side. We all know by now that Clinton is a lying corrupt crook and Trump is a crazy chauvinist pig. Good luck convincing the die-hards, they don't seem to care.

I admit, I have voted the lesser of the two evils before. It has a twisted, compelling logic. But this election, I can't stomach either candidate. They are both simultaneously the worst possible candidate ever. I don't share ideals with Clinton (and don't think she's honest enough to enact anything that doesn't benefit her at the moment) and while Trump occasionally says something useful, he tends to change his mind several times and forget he ever said anything to that effect and is also untrustworthy (and very dangerously thin-skinned).

So I can't vote for either. And I urge everyone else to vote their conscience. The two-party system uses and abuses it's voters for their own ends and if we swallow our pride and morals and keep falling in line with the party we think might align the closest, we both lose our integrity and strengthen the stranglehold the parties have over us.

If one of these candidates represents you, like you really actually agree with or like them, then go for it.

But the only way we'll ever escape this trap of huge political parties dictating down to us, giving us "democracy" while depriving us of making choices we actually want to make is to take the power from them. If people stop going along with the corruption and start voting third party or getting involved locally or writing letters or something else to make a change, we might eventually get through to them. Eventually topple the giants. It might not happen this election. I think the Republican party could be mortally wounded and the Democratic party has lost faith with many of their followers. But say we pour our votes into other candidates. Maybe one of the crooks would still win. But they'll see the trend. They'll see we are starting to question what they always told us. Maybe they'll soften back toward their base. Maybe they'll tighten their grip until we slip from them.

I also urge you to vote for someone actually running for president. If you feel the need to write in a candidate, if nobody really matches, then go ahead and do that. But I think that if other candidates surge, if enough of us throw our support behind them, it will make more of an impact (of course, Mickey Mouse could end up being president this year).

I've seen Gary Johnson's name tossed up a lot. I'm a libertarian by philosophy, but not part of the the Libertarian Party, and honestly I've heard he's not that good of a libertarian, so I probably won't support him.

Jill Stein is running for the Green party. Not my party, but it could be yours.

Evan McMullin is a name I've heard and he seems pretty good on some of my issues and seems level-headed.

Darrel Castle is running for the Constitution Party. I agree with the Constitution, but their key issues seems to be a little narrow in focus, leaving off some other issues I care about.

I don't know, there could be others. Find them. Read about them. Maybe still vote for Mickey Mouse or Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders or your pastor or your dad. But I'd like to at least start showing the two-party establishment that we're not always just going to bow our heads and go along when they get farther and farther away from representing us.

Oh, and I'm not part of the Republican Party. I only joined back up to vote in the caucuses and left again. It will not be my fault if Trump loses. It will be Trump's fault for alienating so many people and being so seriously flawed.

Non-Facebook, now. I just wanted to add that this election might seem dire, close to apocalyptic. Certainly the commentators and newscasters and candidates themselves try and sell that line. But, like my father always said, "Christ and the Church." Volunteer locally. Spend time with your family. Attend church. Do God's work where you can. Pray. PRAY. Christians have been through much worse and we've been blessed to have a country so aligned to our ideals for these past couple hundred years. If it comes to an end, know it's been bad before, it could be bad again, but our faith is not up for election and Christ will not cease to be if the "wrong" person gets elected. See the beauty in the fall leaves and pray.