Archer gets political

Despite the fact that my husband and I have taken like a million pictures of Archer during his short 7 week life, I already regret not taking more.

Archer used to do this move where he'd raise his fist in the air. It looked like a call to action - like he was saying, in the words of the venerable Flavor Flav "Fight the Power!".

He doesn't really do it any more. This was as close as a picture as I could find. Maybe Archer has mellowed-out politically speaking. Or maybe he's already become cynical and disillusioned like the rest of us. Or maybe he's just gained a little more muscle control...nah, that can't be it. I go with the mellow theory.

It can't be that he's disillusioned because I think Archer and I are just finding our political voice.

People write about a *lot how much women (and men) give up when they have kids. Why don't we ever talk about how much we gain (besides the obvious baby thing). I have found that since Archer came into our life, I am starting to feel passionate about issues again. It makes sense, right? Leave a better world for the little ones... that sort of thing.

So as good as this is for a downtown mama existentially speaking, from a practical perspective, it can keep a downtown mama busy and can get her out of the house - which is what we should all strive for.

Today, Archer and I went to an actual protest at Queen's Park. We were part of a group of several hundred moms and dad from the west end of Toronto who were there to protest - with their strollers and kids - the announcement by the government to have a dedicated diesel rail line run 300x/day right through our neighborhood. Now I'm all for having a dedicated line from the airport to downtown - it's about time quite frankly. But diesel? Really? How daft can you get.

Check out more about the cause right here and sign the petition if you can www.cleantrain.ca.

Getting involved with a political cause allowed me to meet some new moms today and to talk about issues that were important to us...it reminded me of a me that existed in University but somehow got lost in the last few years.

Incidentally, it also allowed me to test out the tolerance of others to nursing in the middle of Queens Park....sigh...you can plan as much as you want, sometimes, the little guy just gets hungry. Anyway, other than that one creepy dude that walked by me (there always has to be one, doesn't there), overall, people were more than accepting.

I'm attaching a video of part of our protest. It's kinda funny and I've decided that we, generally speaking, need to revisit protest songs. I mean, yes, I've had this song in my head steady since the protest but sort of in the same way that I have "Boom Boom Pow" in my head for like 3 days straight if I hear even 2 seconds of it (I've done it to you, haven't I? Sorry). Anyway, apologies to the writer but if I run into Feist or Broken Social Scene in the next couple days, I'm telling them to get on this.