I need some help here. my partner comes from a pretty fractured family. His mom is mohawk, adopted into a white family and herself 'passes' as white intentionally. His father is metis, irish and rom, but is not interested in talking about anything but the irish side. Our relationship with them is tenuous so I don't feel comfortable talking to them about this and either does mr sauce. Mr sauce identifies as 'a mix' but doesn't go into it much more than that.

I live in a crazy neighborhood. I'm a real 'people watcher' so I get endless enjoyment out of witnessing all sorts of interesting things go down. The latest:

1. A hearse getting a boost from another car with jumper cables. In front of the church during a funeral.

2. Three 'ladies of the evening' sharing a bucket of chicken in the parking lot. They were all really enjoying that chicken, while smoking after a long night of work.

As pathetic as this is, something I really look forward to throughout the week is being able to go to the bathroom and take a dump on my own with no interruption or intrusion from my children on Saturday mornings. Mr Sauce is home to make breakfast and care for the children while I poop. One of the hardest things for me about having little kids is the lack of personal physical space, it always seems like someone is touching me, hanging off me and generally demanding 100% of my attention. Last night both the kids slept beside me and I woke up feeling claustrophobic and hostile.

...and I know this because she is telling me through my bread machine.

this morning I woke up at 7:50 am, the exact same time the saucette was born exactly a year ago. in the same room she was born. i nursed her and we got up, she pointed to the exact spot on the floor where she came into the world and said "baby!". it was magic.

so this past year I have been re-learning how to drive. I am not really enjoying it too much, but I will be glad to have my drivers license again and it will be handy to take the kids out to the country whenever I want.

Early this morning I got up with the Saucette, raring to go at 6:20 am. We were sitting on the couch playing 'where's your nose' when all of a sudden she stuck her tiny finger right up my nose really high up and scratches with her razor sharp baby fingernail. Hurt like dickens and my nose started bleeding all over the place. Later in the day I am reading Sauce jr a story and he throws his head back in hilarity (we were reading his all time favorite book 'Super Diaper Baby'. Check it out it is hilarious)and slams his big old kid skull right into my mouth.

I didn't bike far today, but here is a pic of me on my ride with both kids, swim bag and a picnic in the trailer.

we went to the sprinkler park and back which is a 7 minute ride.

one or two shots from my messy garden.

my little salad garden:

you can sort of see my scarlet runner beans in the backround.

some calendula, a columbine and some sugar snap peas:

we all do. we live in a culture that celebrates violence and aggressive behavior. I could list some examples like war, pro sports, movies and tv, of course video games. Over and over again we get the message that violence solves problems even though we have multiple experiences that tell us this isn't true. Most of us were spanked as kids and there was a time not that long ago that if you didn't spank your kids you were considered neglectful. I guess my whole point is that I and most of you here are trying to break that cycle of violence, swimming upstream the whole way.