Hello, 2009 - If I can't have a personal jetpack, can I join the financial bailout train?

Happy New Year y'all!

It's still hard to believe that it's 2009. I certainly don't feel *mumble*mumble* years old. The last three years have been so busy and hectic with pregnancy, then newborn, and now a toddler. I have to always stop and do the math to figure out my age. I want to automatically say that I'm the age I was just before getting pregnant.

We don't yet have personal jetpacks for everyone or some of the other Jetson-like futuristic gadgets, but soon, we could have personal nuclear power plants. They are the size of a garden shed and would be able to power 20,000 homes. The design is based on a 50-year old design, like that used for nuclear subs. The reactor would be completely encased in concrete, with no moving parts, buried underground, and would not use weapon-grade uranium. That is just amazing to me. The article points out that at a cost of $25m each, a community of 10,000 households would only need to pay $2500 per home to have their own personal nuclear reactor.

Little Bit is certainly going to be growing up in a different time and context than I did or his dad did. Micro-laptops and text messaging and cell phones. When I was growing up, I remember that my dad used punch cards to program the mainframe computers at his work! Now we've got video watches and micro-computers that can fit in your pocket

One of the greatest inventions might be the DVR. Little Bit just assumes that he can watch any show that he requests, at any time. If you don't have any recordings of that show, you better get ready for the tantrum. (BTW, the Viacom and Time Warner dispute news scared the crap out of me -- No Noggin? No Nickelodeon? No CSI on Spike? Yesterday morning, Noggin was still on our cable. Thank god - Little Bit can still watch "Max and Ruby" and "Dora" and etc, etc. The online news says that Time Warner and Viacom reached a deal to avoid the blackout. However, I'm still nervous, because for some reason, Noggin was a black, dead channel this morning. That's so not good, people. We have about two episodes each of Little Bit's favorite shows on DVR. We've already watched each about 5+ times because our DVR refuses to record anything new. We haven't gotten around to taking it in to exchange it for a new one. We need new shows. I can only watch Steve figure out the mouse ran up the clock 10 times before I may have to gouge out my eyes.)

In other news, Little Bit is very aware now and talking about happy and sad emotions. He stubbed his toe recently and told us that the foot was "not happy", but the other foot was happy. While it's very cool that Little Bit can now tell us he is happy, he can also break my heart when he says that he is not happy.

Recently, we were on our way to dinner in the car. Little Bit was being his usual talkative self and kept asking the same question over and over, even when we had already answered. My blood sugar was crashing (head opens and out comes snarling, raging dragon). I told him sharply that we had heard him and to please be quiet.

A few minutes later, his small voice piped up from the back seat. "I not happy."

I said, "Oh, honey...why aren't you happy?" He didn't answer, but DH pointed out that his feelings had probably been hurt by my sharp tone. Cue shattering heart. I apologized to Little Bit for my sharp tone and made sure to hug him when we got to the restaurant.

Last week, I was sleeping in with a headache. DH later told me of a conversation he had with Little Bit.

Little Bit said, "I happy...Daddy happy...Mommy no happy."

DH said, "No, Mommy sick."

Little Bit repeated, "Mommy no happy."

I had been feeling a little blue for several days, and he had picked up on it.