"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens... Huge, rising death tolls and toxic emissions"

One of my favourite things to do once the weather starts getting warmer in spring, is to have my afternoon nap (I am a new mom after all) with my bedroom window open and the blinds up and curtains back. I just love listening to the wind in the birch tree out front, the birds, even the cars going by. It's very calming and to me the whole world seems to be at peace, just because I'm cozy in my bed with the sun shining in.

Don't worry I'm not that naive... As Marc will attest to, I have a pretty strange morbid side to me. Often before bed at night I will say, "Marc stop and think for a sec... think what's going on in the world right now. How many people do you think are being mugged in New York city right now? I bet there's some woman walking down a dark street who's about to be attacked and raped. Think about all of the underaged prostitutes in Asia... about all the kids who've died of starvation in the past 5 minutes. Right now. Somebody probably died right now, and now... and now."

I do this in less depressing ways too. Elisabeth Hasselback (the co-host from the View who was on Survivor Australia) had her baby 2 weeks after Luke was born, so I felt like I had gone through my whole pregnancy with her, watching her belly grow, etc. I even cried when they announced that she had had her baby (post-natal hormones, I'm assuming. That and I missed being pregnant.) Sometimes I'd be up at night nursing Luke and I'd think, I wonder if Elisabeth is nursing her baby right now. Or in the evenings when Luke gets fussy, I think about all of the other people with newborns who are trying to keep them happy right then. Or I think about all the women who are in labour and I'm jealous because I love the whole labour, delivery, being in the hospital with the new baby experience.

I don't know, I guess I may think about things too much sometimes, but I think far too often we get caught up in our own little worlds and schedules and don't think enough about the things in the world going on right at that moment. Maybe this will explain it: After Marc and I watched Hotel Rwanda, I was especially moved because I remember hearing about it on the news when I was in high school. And now I think, I probably could have done something, maybe not much, but something! It's one thing to look back 5 years from now and say "oh wasn't that sad when such and such happened" and not be able to do anything about it because it's over.

We need to start thinking about right now and what we can do right now, instead of waiting for the situations to pass and our feelings of obligation to pass with it!