I regret to inform you that the party you were all invited to as been canceled. And not even until further notice either. It's just been canceled. Now, for those of you are feeling indignat that you didn't get your invitation, it's probably because you have a cheery disposition. I was having a pity party, and there is no place for optimism there.
It's a shame too. I had found the most morose decorations. I had also purchased quite a few humidifiers so it would feel like it was raining, which seems like a nice touch. Besides which, it would make it that much more pitiful to open soggy gifts that are also empty, or better yet, filled with IOU's. And pitiful is what I was striving for, after all. The cake was to be undercooked, with salt added instead of sugar, and the rest of the eats- laced with salmonilla.
It would have been such a good pity party too. But then I went and did the dumbest thing EVER. I included my mom is my plans, and I'll tell you...there's never been another person alive who's better at hearing you feel sorry for yourself, and then saying something so horrendously sympathetic about someone else in worse straights, and making you feel very very silly. That's right, after listening to me sniffle and whine for a few minutes, she said something to the effect of "It's a good thing you don't live in Japan!"
Yep. Conversation stopper right there. Not much you can say to that is there?
So from the very bottom of my heart, thanks mom. Thankyou for putting things in perspective for me, and putting an end to my fantastically selfish pity party. No, my life is not what I want it to be. I do, however, have a home with four walls and a roof. Hot water coming out of my taps, and a working toilette. There is food in my fridge, clean clothes on my back. I have a phone to call someone, and a car to get where I need to be. My children are safe, and healthy, and happy. I know where all the people I love are, and that they are safe, happy, healthy and at least as well provided as I. Heat comes out of my vents when it is cold, and lights come on when it is dark. The air I breathe is safe, as is the food I eat. I do not live in fear for my life, or for the lives of my family. I have a place to go when I am sick, where I will be cared for. I have a place to buy medicine when I need it. The water I drink is clean and fresh.
Not only do I have everything I need to survive, but I have what I need to live. Happily too, if I could get out of my own way. I have a computer, to learn on and to communicate and reach out to anyone and anywhere. I have books to read, a television to watch, movies and music to entertain myself with. There are board games in the basement, and decks of cards on top of the fridge. My house is usually filled with the sound of laughing children, and tapping dressup shoes. There are happy little make up smudges at roughly a 6 year olds level. Toys are scattered about in every room in the house. My back yard is (or will be when it's warmer) green and lush with grass and flowers. It is large too, I have a lot of room to enjoy my children.
I have so many blessings, so much to be happy for. So life doesn't look like I thought it would today...but mom is right. It looks a hell of a lot better than a lot of other peoples lives. There are many people who would love to have just ONE of my many blessings. It's a sad thing, when it takes a woman who's been through so much and who has so much right to be angry and pitiful to tell me not to feel sorry for myself.
So, longs story short. the party is off. I'm celebrating instead, with a quiet thanks for all that I've been given.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
insomnia is no match for a good imagination
In periods of stress and anxiety, I always get insomnia. It's enough to drive me nuts, simply because facing anxiety and stress alone are difficult let alone doing it while exhausted. What you might struggle to deal with today, I can pretty much assure you that if you stay up half the night, today will feel like wonderland compared to tomorrow. Sleep is essential for health- mind, body and soul.
When you've spent nights awake till two and then up at six, the darkness seems deeper and darker and reaches too far to see the edge of. Loneliness is sharper, what you are afraid will happen seems so much more likely. When it's two am, and everyone is asleep and the house and everything around you is silent, isolation is at it's peak. Solutions to problems are tucked away somewhere, out of sight and hidden. Mentally, you spin around and around and around, lighting for a moment on a thought and then skipping away again when it stings. When you're that tired, and that stressed, everything stings. Happy thoughts belong to the day, not to the people sitting alone in the dark.
On these nights, I try to banish the fear, or sadness or stress with happy thoughts. Something so happy, so beautiful that the darkness can't break in. Since I was very young, I've gone to the same mental place when even the relief of sleep is hard to hold on to. My little personal cure for insomnia.
I curl up in bed and close my eyes and I imagine something I will never ever have, but something that is so perfect, the image is enough.
I imagine my mother running in the sun catching butterflies with my daughter. I can see the expression on her face as they jump through the sprinkler, flashing in and out of the little rainbows. I imagine us, mom and the girls and I, swinging on the swings feet pointed to the sun. I imagine us jumping in puddles in the rain and looking for worms and other icky's. I see us all sitting on a log by the creek eating ice cream. Walking down the trails in the snow, sliding down hills with rosey cheeks. In my imagination, she does not limp or hurt. We swim in the summer, and slide in the winter. We rake leaves and jump in the piles in the fall, we go on hikes and look for all the baby snapping turtles so faith can be like Diego and help them find their way to their mothers in the water. We skip and run and laugh and play, and she's always laughing and smiling.
Even though I know I will never have these things, imagining what it would be like if I COULD...it is enough to make me happy and relaxed enough to sleep. Truth be told, I do not do this only when I can't sleep. Every night I am not sleeping before I've touched my pillow, I spend a little bit of time in that other world where my mom gets to be the person she would have been.
To you it sounds morbid maybe, but to me...it's perfect.
When you've spent nights awake till two and then up at six, the darkness seems deeper and darker and reaches too far to see the edge of. Loneliness is sharper, what you are afraid will happen seems so much more likely. When it's two am, and everyone is asleep and the house and everything around you is silent, isolation is at it's peak. Solutions to problems are tucked away somewhere, out of sight and hidden. Mentally, you spin around and around and around, lighting for a moment on a thought and then skipping away again when it stings. When you're that tired, and that stressed, everything stings. Happy thoughts belong to the day, not to the people sitting alone in the dark.
On these nights, I try to banish the fear, or sadness or stress with happy thoughts. Something so happy, so beautiful that the darkness can't break in. Since I was very young, I've gone to the same mental place when even the relief of sleep is hard to hold on to. My little personal cure for insomnia.
I curl up in bed and close my eyes and I imagine something I will never ever have, but something that is so perfect, the image is enough.
I imagine my mother running in the sun catching butterflies with my daughter. I can see the expression on her face as they jump through the sprinkler, flashing in and out of the little rainbows. I imagine us, mom and the girls and I, swinging on the swings feet pointed to the sun. I imagine us jumping in puddles in the rain and looking for worms and other icky's. I see us all sitting on a log by the creek eating ice cream. Walking down the trails in the snow, sliding down hills with rosey cheeks. In my imagination, she does not limp or hurt. We swim in the summer, and slide in the winter. We rake leaves and jump in the piles in the fall, we go on hikes and look for all the baby snapping turtles so faith can be like Diego and help them find their way to their mothers in the water. We skip and run and laugh and play, and she's always laughing and smiling.
Even though I know I will never have these things, imagining what it would be like if I COULD...it is enough to make me happy and relaxed enough to sleep. Truth be told, I do not do this only when I can't sleep. Every night I am not sleeping before I've touched my pillow, I spend a little bit of time in that other world where my mom gets to be the person she would have been.
To you it sounds morbid maybe, but to me...it's perfect.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Every day starts out perfect
I think that every day starts out perfectly...and remember, just because you're eyes aren't open yet doesn't mean the day hasn't started. Before the sun comes up and eyes open, nothing bad has happened. No mistakes have been made. You haven't accidentally kicked the cat off the balcony, you haven't burned your scalp with the curling iron, you have not realized yet that your hot water tank has been leaking alllllllllll night. You didn't run over a dog on the way to work. The junkie has yet to go and get his fix. A parent hasn't crossed a line they can never come back from.
If you took the time, you would see the perfect beauty of a fresh new day. Dew drops on a spiders web, frost patterns on the window, bird song in the early morning. A pink sky, the smell of coffee floating up the stairs. The perfect arms and legs and bony joints awkwardly sticking out of your childrens blankets. The quiet warmth of the early sun, or the sound of rain on the roof. The way a fresh blanket of snow makes everything so much quieter.
In the middle of the day, sometimes it's hard to find those perfect moments. You've gotten stressy, fallen behind, been forgotten, been late, gotten lost or anything else. It's harder to appreciate the imperfections that throw a shadow of unique on everything. By the end of the day, it can be impossible.
Kids are kind of like that. They start off so perfect, and anyone can recognize a million beautiful things about them. Even a stranger. Their tiny nails, and translucent skin, the squeaks and squirms and hearty cries. The way their eyelashes seem to almost be made of light, and how when they fall asleep on your shoulder, you could swear they were angels. It's so easy to find their innocence, it radiates outside of them and seeps into everyone inside of a mile. You feel yourself get younger just watching them.
But a little later, when they fall down screaming and then make like an over cooked noodle when you try to pick them up, and they test you and push you and saw at your last nerve until you can actually feel yourself cracking, that's when it's harder.
My husband works with teenagers who are always, always, ALWAYS that kid that the average stranger would not like. They are dangerous, dishonest, and always in trouble. They lack impulse control, and are either unable to predict consequences or they just don't care. They would rather spend three times more energy avoiding responsibilities than it would take to just DO IT. He came home one day, and held our children while he shook and he looked at me and asked "Is it hard? Please, tell me it is hard to fuck up children THAT badly".
I didn't have an answer, and still don't. All my experience being a child, a teenager, a young adult, an irrisponsible student, a social service worker, and a parent does not qualify my to answer that. I really have no idea. I hope the answer is yes, it's hard to screw up kids that badly. You have to work to be that negligent. But I don't know. I think that it's important to remember though, that like the days that end with little to recomend it...they started off perfect and people are no different.
They start off perfect too.
If you took the time, you would see the perfect beauty of a fresh new day. Dew drops on a spiders web, frost patterns on the window, bird song in the early morning. A pink sky, the smell of coffee floating up the stairs. The perfect arms and legs and bony joints awkwardly sticking out of your childrens blankets. The quiet warmth of the early sun, or the sound of rain on the roof. The way a fresh blanket of snow makes everything so much quieter.
In the middle of the day, sometimes it's hard to find those perfect moments. You've gotten stressy, fallen behind, been forgotten, been late, gotten lost or anything else. It's harder to appreciate the imperfections that throw a shadow of unique on everything. By the end of the day, it can be impossible.
Kids are kind of like that. They start off so perfect, and anyone can recognize a million beautiful things about them. Even a stranger. Their tiny nails, and translucent skin, the squeaks and squirms and hearty cries. The way their eyelashes seem to almost be made of light, and how when they fall asleep on your shoulder, you could swear they were angels. It's so easy to find their innocence, it radiates outside of them and seeps into everyone inside of a mile. You feel yourself get younger just watching them.
But a little later, when they fall down screaming and then make like an over cooked noodle when you try to pick them up, and they test you and push you and saw at your last nerve until you can actually feel yourself cracking, that's when it's harder.
My husband works with teenagers who are always, always, ALWAYS that kid that the average stranger would not like. They are dangerous, dishonest, and always in trouble. They lack impulse control, and are either unable to predict consequences or they just don't care. They would rather spend three times more energy avoiding responsibilities than it would take to just DO IT. He came home one day, and held our children while he shook and he looked at me and asked "Is it hard? Please, tell me it is hard to fuck up children THAT badly".
I didn't have an answer, and still don't. All my experience being a child, a teenager, a young adult, an irrisponsible student, a social service worker, and a parent does not qualify my to answer that. I really have no idea. I hope the answer is yes, it's hard to screw up kids that badly. You have to work to be that negligent. But I don't know. I think that it's important to remember though, that like the days that end with little to recomend it...they started off perfect and people are no different.
They start off perfect too.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
My personal list of awsomeness
For those of you who would not choose to live in a bookstore, who do not peruse the new release list daily, who don't get email updates revealing treasured release dates of closely followed books by much loved authors, there is a new book out called the Book of Awsome. This book is full of the daily happenings that make life just a little bit easier. The things that happen that make you think, that's so awsome. They happen to us all, not always appreciated but they're there.
This is my personal list of awesomeness. Some of them are no doubt in the Book of Awsome, and if so any copying is not my fault. It just means I happen to agree with the level of awsome contained.
In all honesty, we live in a world with too much crap and sadness in it. Earthquakes and famine, disease, economic instability, violence and death. It's on every news broadcast, every newspaper, every time you log onto the internet. That shit can get you down, it really can, and when you get down sometimes it's hard to find the little things in life that should always make you smile.
So take stock, make a list, and smile on.
1. Finding your own money that you didn't know you lost.
It happens to all of us once in a while, and it's guaronteed to make you say "that's awesome!" The season is changing from the cold season to the warm season, or vise versa. It's at this time that you start getting out clothes that have either been packed away or left alone. You put on a pair of jeans for the first time in months, do a few squats to break them in and jam your hands in your pockets to adjust the waist and straighten out the pockets. Your fingers brush something papery, you pull it out and BINGO! 20 bucks.
yep, it's free. Money that was yours, that you forgot about and is now yours again. Welcome to awsome my friend.
2. New socks.
There's nothing better than putting on a fresh pair of never worn socks. They fit perfectly, they aren't thin in the toes or bunchy in the heels, they are not stained, there are no weird toe holes that you can feel alllll day. Perfect socks. They're awsome.
3. The surprise envelope in the mail.
Five days a week, you check the mail. An empty mail box is a beautiful thing. If it's empty, it might mean that no one wrote to you, but honestly...facebook my friend. It's the new mailbox. Instantaneous, and free. An empty mail box means that today, you do not owe money. No bills! AWSOME!!!!!
But even better, is the dreaded government labled envelope. You see it and your heart beats a little faster...your hands might even get sweaty. YOu start thinking that you probably are going to have to cancel plans...and you wince over the new jeans you bought. If you're like me...you put it on the computer table...under something convenient, and enjoy the knowledge that for now the contents of the envelope are a mystery.
Eventually though, you're going to have to open it. Sometimes, you open it and find a great big pile of the opposite of awsome. But sometimes...you find a cheque. Free money. YOUR money. You take out all the papers, to make sure that they haven't snuck in a reverse-awsome trick...but nope. AWSOME. So go out, get a new pair of boots...and with every step you take, listen to what you're feet are telling you as they dance along the floors in the mall on your spree. If you try very very VERY hard, you'll hear them saying "aw-some"
4. Fresh bread and soft butter.
Fresh bread alone is awsome, I know. How can you possibly improve on the awsomeness of a fresh loaf of bread, warm and crusty with steam coming off the top. So soft in the middle, so delicious. And the SMELL. It smells like home, like a grandmother, like safety. It smells like peace, and serenity. It's what a break smells like. You feel comforted by the scent, that smell that anyone could recognise. At this point, there are really only two possible outcomes.
a) you sit down and slice a nice piece off, and TRY to butter it. But your butter is hard, and your bread tears. There's little balls of rolled up butter plastered to your bread, and pieces of it are missing and scattered. It's squashed, mishapen...It doesn't look the same. And no matter how many times you try to tell yourself it's not really different...it IS. It's not going to taste like magic...and you KNOW it.
OR
b) You sit down with your delicious mouth watering treat, spread some soft butter ALL over it and munch on. It tastes better than you imagined...it fills your mouth with happiness. You feel complete and at one with your bread, satisfied with your experience. Warmth and happiness and comfort radiate off of you in waves. Option B, totally awsome. Option A...close...but no cigar. So for those of you who need a little comfort and are banking on not being disabused of your awsome notions...warm up your butter FIRST.
5. baby sitters.
Kids are awsome. they REALLY are. Most of the time. Almost all of the time. But sometimes, you want to run away, crawl into a deep dark dirty hole and curl up into the fetal position and tremble until the sound of screaming that seems to ricochet through your skull goes blessedly, silent. On these days, the faint thread of guilt as you drop your miserable child off at the sitter doesn't QUITE outweigh you're rising sense of excitement and freedome as you happily skip off to work or your lobotomy appointment. Nine times out of ten, their horrendous mood is put on hold while they innocently giggle and laugh until you pick them up again, and immediately resume all previous behavior. Regardless, you managed 8 hours of awsome.
6. Dryer clothes
If you're around my age, you might remember being very small and climbing into the pile of clean clothes, still warm from the dryer and smelling wonderful. The fragrance of fabric softener, no matter what kind, is always lovely. As an adult, I occasionally wrap myself in my fluffiest towel, still warm from the dryer and close my eyes. I can feel myself being transported to a six year old me, wearing a face splitting grin sans front teeth and burrowing in my moms flannel night gown. No one can ever complain surrounded by that. Not right then, at that moment. I think it might even mellow a crack head going through withdrawl. It's a thought you know, therapy via heat and fabric softener. In any case, my research has shown a direct correlation between freshly dried clothes and awsome. You'll want to expirement for yourself. It's not like it can make a day worse.
This is my personal list of awesomeness. Some of them are no doubt in the Book of Awsome, and if so any copying is not my fault. It just means I happen to agree with the level of awsome contained.
In all honesty, we live in a world with too much crap and sadness in it. Earthquakes and famine, disease, economic instability, violence and death. It's on every news broadcast, every newspaper, every time you log onto the internet. That shit can get you down, it really can, and when you get down sometimes it's hard to find the little things in life that should always make you smile.
So take stock, make a list, and smile on.
1. Finding your own money that you didn't know you lost.
It happens to all of us once in a while, and it's guaronteed to make you say "that's awesome!" The season is changing from the cold season to the warm season, or vise versa. It's at this time that you start getting out clothes that have either been packed away or left alone. You put on a pair of jeans for the first time in months, do a few squats to break them in and jam your hands in your pockets to adjust the waist and straighten out the pockets. Your fingers brush something papery, you pull it out and BINGO! 20 bucks.
yep, it's free. Money that was yours, that you forgot about and is now yours again. Welcome to awsome my friend.
2. New socks.
There's nothing better than putting on a fresh pair of never worn socks. They fit perfectly, they aren't thin in the toes or bunchy in the heels, they are not stained, there are no weird toe holes that you can feel alllll day. Perfect socks. They're awsome.
3. The surprise envelope in the mail.
Five days a week, you check the mail. An empty mail box is a beautiful thing. If it's empty, it might mean that no one wrote to you, but honestly...facebook my friend. It's the new mailbox. Instantaneous, and free. An empty mail box means that today, you do not owe money. No bills! AWSOME!!!!!
But even better, is the dreaded government labled envelope. You see it and your heart beats a little faster...your hands might even get sweaty. YOu start thinking that you probably are going to have to cancel plans...and you wince over the new jeans you bought. If you're like me...you put it on the computer table...under something convenient, and enjoy the knowledge that for now the contents of the envelope are a mystery.
Eventually though, you're going to have to open it. Sometimes, you open it and find a great big pile of the opposite of awsome. But sometimes...you find a cheque. Free money. YOUR money. You take out all the papers, to make sure that they haven't snuck in a reverse-awsome trick...but nope. AWSOME. So go out, get a new pair of boots...and with every step you take, listen to what you're feet are telling you as they dance along the floors in the mall on your spree. If you try very very VERY hard, you'll hear them saying "aw-some"
4. Fresh bread and soft butter.
Fresh bread alone is awsome, I know. How can you possibly improve on the awsomeness of a fresh loaf of bread, warm and crusty with steam coming off the top. So soft in the middle, so delicious. And the SMELL. It smells like home, like a grandmother, like safety. It smells like peace, and serenity. It's what a break smells like. You feel comforted by the scent, that smell that anyone could recognise. At this point, there are really only two possible outcomes.
a) you sit down and slice a nice piece off, and TRY to butter it. But your butter is hard, and your bread tears. There's little balls of rolled up butter plastered to your bread, and pieces of it are missing and scattered. It's squashed, mishapen...It doesn't look the same. And no matter how many times you try to tell yourself it's not really different...it IS. It's not going to taste like magic...and you KNOW it.
OR
b) You sit down with your delicious mouth watering treat, spread some soft butter ALL over it and munch on. It tastes better than you imagined...it fills your mouth with happiness. You feel complete and at one with your bread, satisfied with your experience. Warmth and happiness and comfort radiate off of you in waves. Option B, totally awsome. Option A...close...but no cigar. So for those of you who need a little comfort and are banking on not being disabused of your awsome notions...warm up your butter FIRST.
5. baby sitters.
Kids are awsome. they REALLY are. Most of the time. Almost all of the time. But sometimes, you want to run away, crawl into a deep dark dirty hole and curl up into the fetal position and tremble until the sound of screaming that seems to ricochet through your skull goes blessedly, silent. On these days, the faint thread of guilt as you drop your miserable child off at the sitter doesn't QUITE outweigh you're rising sense of excitement and freedome as you happily skip off to work or your lobotomy appointment. Nine times out of ten, their horrendous mood is put on hold while they innocently giggle and laugh until you pick them up again, and immediately resume all previous behavior. Regardless, you managed 8 hours of awsome.
6. Dryer clothes
If you're around my age, you might remember being very small and climbing into the pile of clean clothes, still warm from the dryer and smelling wonderful. The fragrance of fabric softener, no matter what kind, is always lovely. As an adult, I occasionally wrap myself in my fluffiest towel, still warm from the dryer and close my eyes. I can feel myself being transported to a six year old me, wearing a face splitting grin sans front teeth and burrowing in my moms flannel night gown. No one can ever complain surrounded by that. Not right then, at that moment. I think it might even mellow a crack head going through withdrawl. It's a thought you know, therapy via heat and fabric softener. In any case, my research has shown a direct correlation between freshly dried clothes and awsome. You'll want to expirement for yourself. It's not like it can make a day worse.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
From One Baby to Another:
Greetings babies everywhere!
Now that I have reached six months of age, a veteran you might say, I thought it was my duty to share with you all that I have learned about the world around me! haha SHIT no! What this is right here, is all you need to know about controlling the environment, controlling your family, and getting as much out of your life as possible. I am sure that to many of you, it seems like a complicated process but once you've learned the fundamentals, it's really very easy.
The main thing you have to remember is to act as though you are the boss.
Because you ARE.
Behave in a manner that leads the lady and man adult to believe that what they owe you most is happiness, and that they are failing miserably.
It keeps them on their toes.
Make sure to give them enough smiles to keep them trying for more, otherwise you'll push them right over the edge. I find this one works best:
It's important to factor in size. I have learned that with minimal effort, I am able to get away with less and less as my size has increased. For example, when I was very new and small, I was able to kick my man adult out of bed for eight weeks. I know it was his bed because he always left it in varying stages of anger, sadness, frustration and/or exhaustion when I got screamy as soon as he got in. For this to be successful, timing really is everything. If you start too early in the day, you're liable to wear yourself out completely, and it's entirely possible that you'll sleep in your own bed for a half hour before waking, enabling said man adult to get some rest in his own bed. I found it beneficial to start screaming at around six.
Now, it's important to remember that not everyone has my stamina. I don't mean to sound boastful, but at my smallest I was quite capable of reducing my lady adult to tears and then carrying on until eleven or twelve at night. That wasn't colic either, just verbal misery at a high decibel. Considering how much she disrupted my life at the time, I only feel a little guilty about that.
Which brings me to a very important point. The lady and man adults have their own job, and we as babies, have another one. It is our jobs to be needy, clingy, distracting, oderous, dependant, with a nice sidedish of cute and lovable to keep them coming back for more. Their job is not only to deal with it, but deal with it happily. Don't feel guilty about it. Thems the breaks. Besides, you're going to have to get more creative as you get older, so you might as well enjoy it.
Now, about dinner.
Dinner is a special time for everyone, for different reasons. For the lady and man adults, their dinner is a time of satisfaction, which I can easily ruin in several different ways. The standards are crying, puking, or banging myself in the face with a toy by "accident", but don't stifle your creativity by depending on these.
But I wasn't really talking about their dinner, I was talking about mine.
I have learned that as the baby, the lady and man adults take an inexplicable delight in my food. The seem overly exited about my reactions to different tastes. A word to the wise: prune will come back to bite you in a bad way, and meat is good.
That being said, if the food your lady or man adult is offering you is green, or orange without a sweet aroma I suggest the following behavior:
1. take one mouthfull and spit it out on your bib
2. arch your back so as to slide down the seat of your highchair, giving yourself the most uncomfortable appearance possible
3. Compress your neck to the point that it appears that you have none, thereby squishing your spit out bite into your chins, making your adult consider the cleanup before offering it again.
4. make an angry growling noise.
5. Repeat as many times as necessary.
These five steps should be enough to ensure that you receive the delicacies that befit your station ie: fruit and meat.
that's all for now my fellow babies! I am going to go have a nap. I need my rest because later I plan on squirming until they put me in my bouncing apparatus, at which time I will take a rather large dump followed by jumping forcefully. I haven't yet managed to get it in my hair yet, but I'm trying.
Check back often for more tips on controlling the universe!
Now that I have reached six months of age, a veteran you might say, I thought it was my duty to share with you all that I have learned about the world around me! haha SHIT no! What this is right here, is all you need to know about controlling the environment, controlling your family, and getting as much out of your life as possible. I am sure that to many of you, it seems like a complicated process but once you've learned the fundamentals, it's really very easy.
The main thing you have to remember is to act as though you are the boss.
Because you ARE.
Behave in a manner that leads the lady and man adult to believe that what they owe you most is happiness, and that they are failing miserably.
It keeps them on their toes.
Make sure to give them enough smiles to keep them trying for more, otherwise you'll push them right over the edge. I find this one works best:
It's important to factor in size. I have learned that with minimal effort, I am able to get away with less and less as my size has increased. For example, when I was very new and small, I was able to kick my man adult out of bed for eight weeks. I know it was his bed because he always left it in varying stages of anger, sadness, frustration and/or exhaustion when I got screamy as soon as he got in. For this to be successful, timing really is everything. If you start too early in the day, you're liable to wear yourself out completely, and it's entirely possible that you'll sleep in your own bed for a half hour before waking, enabling said man adult to get some rest in his own bed. I found it beneficial to start screaming at around six.
Now, it's important to remember that not everyone has my stamina. I don't mean to sound boastful, but at my smallest I was quite capable of reducing my lady adult to tears and then carrying on until eleven or twelve at night. That wasn't colic either, just verbal misery at a high decibel. Considering how much she disrupted my life at the time, I only feel a little guilty about that.
Which brings me to a very important point. The lady and man adults have their own job, and we as babies, have another one. It is our jobs to be needy, clingy, distracting, oderous, dependant, with a nice sidedish of cute and lovable to keep them coming back for more. Their job is not only to deal with it, but deal with it happily. Don't feel guilty about it. Thems the breaks. Besides, you're going to have to get more creative as you get older, so you might as well enjoy it.
Now, about dinner.
Dinner is a special time for everyone, for different reasons. For the lady and man adults, their dinner is a time of satisfaction, which I can easily ruin in several different ways. The standards are crying, puking, or banging myself in the face with a toy by "accident", but don't stifle your creativity by depending on these.
But I wasn't really talking about their dinner, I was talking about mine.
I have learned that as the baby, the lady and man adults take an inexplicable delight in my food. The seem overly exited about my reactions to different tastes. A word to the wise: prune will come back to bite you in a bad way, and meat is good.
That being said, if the food your lady or man adult is offering you is green, or orange without a sweet aroma I suggest the following behavior:
1. take one mouthfull and spit it out on your bib
2. arch your back so as to slide down the seat of your highchair, giving yourself the most uncomfortable appearance possible
3. Compress your neck to the point that it appears that you have none, thereby squishing your spit out bite into your chins, making your adult consider the cleanup before offering it again.
4. make an angry growling noise.
5. Repeat as many times as necessary.
These five steps should be enough to ensure that you receive the delicacies that befit your station ie: fruit and meat.
that's all for now my fellow babies! I am going to go have a nap. I need my rest because later I plan on squirming until they put me in my bouncing apparatus, at which time I will take a rather large dump followed by jumping forcefully. I haven't yet managed to get it in my hair yet, but I'm trying.
Check back often for more tips on controlling the universe!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Loss of Faith...or maybe hope.
I have spent most of my life trying to believe in God. I have honestly watched that faith save a life. I have no doubt that without my mothers unswerving faith and love in God, without the belief that He is there, loving her in return, sheltering and protecting her, without her belief that her heart is still beating simply because He wills it so, I would not have my mother today. I have seen others stand tall under fire, so to speak, gaining strength from the belief that God would not give them more than they could handle. Others give thanks to Him for every blessing, living in a state of grace that I find baffling.
There are times in my life that I have envied these people their unswerving belief and faith, while at the same time trying (some days more unsuccessfully than others) not to judge them for believing blindly without ever questioning the plausibility of their belief.
I spent a great deal of my childhood learning about God, and even as a child I didn't understand this blind faith. I would learn the bible, and though I tried so hard to accept it as others did, I wasn't able to banish my scepticism. I have heard someone say that Faith and belief in God is not a place you arrive at and stay, but a series of actions that you repeat every day. Kind of like forgiving someone who doesn't deserve it.
To me, it seems the bible, or Gods word, are so hypocritical and contradictory...and yet I seem to be one of the few who sees it. It is enough to cause a child to believe there must be something wrong with them, since they are the only ones who doubt.
For example...Noahs ark.
Seriously? One old man built a boat because God told him that it would rain non stop for 40 days and nights. This old man, who lived in a time where the world was flat, was to load his family onto the boat, as well as one female and one male animal of every species. Now, some of this would be easy (if you count constructing a boat without nails easy) but really...this is just impossible for so many reasons. Here's a shortish list of them:
1. IF the world were covered in water for 40 days and nights, most plants would have gone extinct since they need sunlight and carbon dioxide to live, which is kind of impossible for land dwelling plants to find in a 100% aquatic environment. That being said, last I heard Noah wasn't a deep sea diver, so collecting water dwelling plants wouldn't have been possible either. You might say that it would un necessary, since water plants need water to survive, however, coral needs a very specific environment to survive, which does not include a mixture of fresh and salt water, and a change in temperature.
2. To continue along with plants, concider that in the last 200 years many plants have gone extinct due to lack of environment, polution, clear cutting etc...and yet there are millions of different plant species today. Go back a thousand years or so...how many plants were there? LOTS. So one old man went on a world wide expedition, after building a huge boat, and collected seeds and cuttings from the milllions of plants that were in existance.
3. Not to mention the animals. I can just picture Noah rustling up a couple of Hippos, aligators, crocodiles, blue whales, great white sharks, venomous snakes and spiders, polar bears, etc. I hadn't heard that he had a magic pipe in his pocket like the pide piper.
4. Lets assume though that he did manage this feat of getting a male and female of every living species onto his boat. What the hell did he feed them? Cows and goats and chickens would have been easy I suppose...but I somehow doubt that with all of the animals around, there would have been even close to enough room to house all of the food it would take to feed elephants and hippos, not to mention the meat eaters.
5. Having that many bodies on a boat, no matter how large or small, is going to breed disease. In a time when people were completely uneducated about the existance of germs, when people didn't see the need to wash your hands after wiping your arse, I find it hard to believe that much would have survived such a long time of enforced captivity. If you think about it, chicken farms today give their chickens antibiotics because so many of them live so close together amid shit and dirt (kind of like how the Arc would have been. If even one chicken contracts an illness, there is a likelihood that a large population of the chickens would be affected. If you add up these conditions (germs and lack of knowledge + unsanitary conditions + alot of living, breathing, urinating, and excreting living bodies) your most likely consequence would be a floating plank with a lot of dead bodies on it. I guess Noah was just a lucky guy!
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a lot of the bible is based on truth as the people who lived in that time saw it. This is a patturn that you can see being repeated all through history though. Then a man was absolutely possitive that a bush spoke to him and it was generally decided that obviously, it was the voice of God. 200 years ago, this same person would have been tried as a witch, and in 2010 would be heavily medicated and hospitalized. Every civilization has had it's beliefs and superstitions.
That's just one story though.
There's the plagues. Once believed to be the will of god, now explained through science. The same goes for the burning bushes. The trek through the desert and bringing water forth from stones? Also explained by science. Mana? Science wins again.
200 years ago, people were born and so many of them never went farther from their place of birth than they could walk in a day. They lived and breathed what preachers told them. When medicine rarely offered a cure that good hygeine and diet couldn't, it was easier to accept death and disease as God's will, rather than accepting that life just SUCKS sometimes. When many children didn't live past infancy, it would have been easier to think of them in Gods arms than to accept that life was just too hard and too unhealthy, disease and germs to prevalent to allow anything but the hardiest and most fortunate to survive. God was easier to believe in, when real information was impossible to get your hands on.
Lets go to the MOST basic principle of the bible. Creation. I have argued the point with my husband many many times out of pure stubborness. I don't know how many times I've told him "Though you may have come from a monkey, I did not". 20 years of trying to believe in God is no match for several hours in front of documentaries. Though there is no proof of creation, there is much proof of evolution. The Big Bang has actually been created. Did you know our universe is still exploding outward from the original bang? Yup. Much as I hate to admit it, my infinately great grandparents lived in trees and ate bananas and threw shit at eachother when they felt like it. It was nice thinking that was just the hubby's family, but alas...
The upside is I am not conflicted anymore. The downside? I now know that I will never see my grandmother again. She isn't somewhere beautiful waiting for me. When my parents are gone, they really will be gone. When I am gone, I will never see my children again. All the people I love...they will all be lost to me some day. It is a sad and depressing thought but this is the only life we have. The only time we have. There is no after, no later. Only now. It makes it that much more important, more necessary to play with your children, to love your partner, to care for your parents, to enjoy your life. You only get this one, this ONE time around the sun before your light goes out.
It is hard to live life knowing that if I live my life well, or live it badly I will still end up the same. It is hard to know that the lowest common denominators of society will end up in the same place as the best. That there isn't something good in store for me, and fire and brimstone for the pedophiles and abusers and ruiners of life and innocence. The truth is though, that the pay off is in the now, not the later.
I am saddened by my loss of faith, and yet renewed. The world is so much more beautiful now that I know I only get to see it this once. My children are more precious now that I know I only get these days once, there is no more. I can see why religeon was born. People need to believe in something. After 20 years, I believe in my children and my family and myself. I believe in the power of today, and the hope for tomorrow. At first loosing faith was painful, and dwelling on all the other losses that go along with loosing God were painful but with time has come acceptance.
I have no wish to offend the population around me, and have no desire to recruit you over to the dark side. If there is enough wonder in the world for you to believe in a God that loves us all and is waiting to welcome you Home one day, then you are blessed I suppose. This is only my own personal opinion.
There are times in my life that I have envied these people their unswerving belief and faith, while at the same time trying (some days more unsuccessfully than others) not to judge them for believing blindly without ever questioning the plausibility of their belief.
I spent a great deal of my childhood learning about God, and even as a child I didn't understand this blind faith. I would learn the bible, and though I tried so hard to accept it as others did, I wasn't able to banish my scepticism. I have heard someone say that Faith and belief in God is not a place you arrive at and stay, but a series of actions that you repeat every day. Kind of like forgiving someone who doesn't deserve it.
To me, it seems the bible, or Gods word, are so hypocritical and contradictory...and yet I seem to be one of the few who sees it. It is enough to cause a child to believe there must be something wrong with them, since they are the only ones who doubt.
For example...Noahs ark.
Seriously? One old man built a boat because God told him that it would rain non stop for 40 days and nights. This old man, who lived in a time where the world was flat, was to load his family onto the boat, as well as one female and one male animal of every species. Now, some of this would be easy (if you count constructing a boat without nails easy) but really...this is just impossible for so many reasons. Here's a shortish list of them:
1. IF the world were covered in water for 40 days and nights, most plants would have gone extinct since they need sunlight and carbon dioxide to live, which is kind of impossible for land dwelling plants to find in a 100% aquatic environment. That being said, last I heard Noah wasn't a deep sea diver, so collecting water dwelling plants wouldn't have been possible either. You might say that it would un necessary, since water plants need water to survive, however, coral needs a very specific environment to survive, which does not include a mixture of fresh and salt water, and a change in temperature.
2. To continue along with plants, concider that in the last 200 years many plants have gone extinct due to lack of environment, polution, clear cutting etc...and yet there are millions of different plant species today. Go back a thousand years or so...how many plants were there? LOTS. So one old man went on a world wide expedition, after building a huge boat, and collected seeds and cuttings from the milllions of plants that were in existance.
3. Not to mention the animals. I can just picture Noah rustling up a couple of Hippos, aligators, crocodiles, blue whales, great white sharks, venomous snakes and spiders, polar bears, etc. I hadn't heard that he had a magic pipe in his pocket like the pide piper.
4. Lets assume though that he did manage this feat of getting a male and female of every living species onto his boat. What the hell did he feed them? Cows and goats and chickens would have been easy I suppose...but I somehow doubt that with all of the animals around, there would have been even close to enough room to house all of the food it would take to feed elephants and hippos, not to mention the meat eaters.
5. Having that many bodies on a boat, no matter how large or small, is going to breed disease. In a time when people were completely uneducated about the existance of germs, when people didn't see the need to wash your hands after wiping your arse, I find it hard to believe that much would have survived such a long time of enforced captivity. If you think about it, chicken farms today give their chickens antibiotics because so many of them live so close together amid shit and dirt (kind of like how the Arc would have been. If even one chicken contracts an illness, there is a likelihood that a large population of the chickens would be affected. If you add up these conditions (germs and lack of knowledge + unsanitary conditions + alot of living, breathing, urinating, and excreting living bodies) your most likely consequence would be a floating plank with a lot of dead bodies on it. I guess Noah was just a lucky guy!
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a lot of the bible is based on truth as the people who lived in that time saw it. This is a patturn that you can see being repeated all through history though. Then a man was absolutely possitive that a bush spoke to him and it was generally decided that obviously, it was the voice of God. 200 years ago, this same person would have been tried as a witch, and in 2010 would be heavily medicated and hospitalized. Every civilization has had it's beliefs and superstitions.
That's just one story though.
There's the plagues. Once believed to be the will of god, now explained through science. The same goes for the burning bushes. The trek through the desert and bringing water forth from stones? Also explained by science. Mana? Science wins again.
200 years ago, people were born and so many of them never went farther from their place of birth than they could walk in a day. They lived and breathed what preachers told them. When medicine rarely offered a cure that good hygeine and diet couldn't, it was easier to accept death and disease as God's will, rather than accepting that life just SUCKS sometimes. When many children didn't live past infancy, it would have been easier to think of them in Gods arms than to accept that life was just too hard and too unhealthy, disease and germs to prevalent to allow anything but the hardiest and most fortunate to survive. God was easier to believe in, when real information was impossible to get your hands on.
Lets go to the MOST basic principle of the bible. Creation. I have argued the point with my husband many many times out of pure stubborness. I don't know how many times I've told him "Though you may have come from a monkey, I did not". 20 years of trying to believe in God is no match for several hours in front of documentaries. Though there is no proof of creation, there is much proof of evolution. The Big Bang has actually been created. Did you know our universe is still exploding outward from the original bang? Yup. Much as I hate to admit it, my infinately great grandparents lived in trees and ate bananas and threw shit at eachother when they felt like it. It was nice thinking that was just the hubby's family, but alas...
The upside is I am not conflicted anymore. The downside? I now know that I will never see my grandmother again. She isn't somewhere beautiful waiting for me. When my parents are gone, they really will be gone. When I am gone, I will never see my children again. All the people I love...they will all be lost to me some day. It is a sad and depressing thought but this is the only life we have. The only time we have. There is no after, no later. Only now. It makes it that much more important, more necessary to play with your children, to love your partner, to care for your parents, to enjoy your life. You only get this one, this ONE time around the sun before your light goes out.
It is hard to live life knowing that if I live my life well, or live it badly I will still end up the same. It is hard to know that the lowest common denominators of society will end up in the same place as the best. That there isn't something good in store for me, and fire and brimstone for the pedophiles and abusers and ruiners of life and innocence. The truth is though, that the pay off is in the now, not the later.
I am saddened by my loss of faith, and yet renewed. The world is so much more beautiful now that I know I only get to see it this once. My children are more precious now that I know I only get these days once, there is no more. I can see why religeon was born. People need to believe in something. After 20 years, I believe in my children and my family and myself. I believe in the power of today, and the hope for tomorrow. At first loosing faith was painful, and dwelling on all the other losses that go along with loosing God were painful but with time has come acceptance.
I have no wish to offend the population around me, and have no desire to recruit you over to the dark side. If there is enough wonder in the world for you to believe in a God that loves us all and is waiting to welcome you Home one day, then you are blessed I suppose. This is only my own personal opinion.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Cupid is a morbidly obese whore
You know what I think you should do, Cupid? Go FUCK yourself. That's right, I said it. You're a greedy whore. Your triple chin smells of cheep chocolate, and you completely overcharge for roses. I personally think you should be banned from Walmart, for commercializing a day of love and turning it into a day of hate and making us all feel the need to buy into your silly scheme of crappy stuffed bears, gaudy necklaces and stale candy. Your perverted cloth diaper is indecent, and while you may have once been a cute glowing little cherub, you are now nothing more than a fat sticky old man in padded underwear.
I am unable to compose poetry and love songs for my husband, so thank you for making me look like a complacent lazy ass. As I am now far too old to go through the trouble of lining the sheets with rose petals, and leaving shiny little I LOVE YOU confetti on the dinner table and finding a website that makes personalized candy hearts...and I don't have the time to clean it up anyways. Fuck you very much you bastard for those tidbits.
So this year, I'm turning traitor. I am not taking part in your stupid day. This year, I will love my husband because it's SUNDAY, and I'll treat him like I love him too. Just because it's SUNDAY, not because you've left your personal stamp on every god damn calender, not because you've strewn your rubbish in every store. Maybe I'll throw in a foot rub, or a bath with candles (and cupid, if you snicker the word GAY just once in his direction I'll kick your candied ass all over the place you FAT bastard...besides, not much straight about a clout is there?).
Two years ago I hated you as much as I do today, for your sickening colors, your trashy objects meant to represent love, your noisy cards and disgusting candies. Esepecially for giving all of us a reason to remember how much we love our people on one particular day of the year. I know damn well my people deserve better than you, hell some days they deserve better than me! Two years ago my husband fell in love with me without your help, and for some reason I'm fortunate enough to find myself still basking in it.
Take a hike Cupid, I got this. It's all me. I'm not sure I want to have you to thank for a "romantic evening" anyways.
Hit the road jack,
and don't ya come back no more no more.....
I am unable to compose poetry and love songs for my husband, so thank you for making me look like a complacent lazy ass. As I am now far too old to go through the trouble of lining the sheets with rose petals, and leaving shiny little I LOVE YOU confetti on the dinner table and finding a website that makes personalized candy hearts...and I don't have the time to clean it up anyways. Fuck you very much you bastard for those tidbits.
So this year, I'm turning traitor. I am not taking part in your stupid day. This year, I will love my husband because it's SUNDAY, and I'll treat him like I love him too. Just because it's SUNDAY, not because you've left your personal stamp on every god damn calender, not because you've strewn your rubbish in every store. Maybe I'll throw in a foot rub, or a bath with candles (and cupid, if you snicker the word GAY just once in his direction I'll kick your candied ass all over the place you FAT bastard...besides, not much straight about a clout is there?).
Two years ago I hated you as much as I do today, for your sickening colors, your trashy objects meant to represent love, your noisy cards and disgusting candies. Esepecially for giving all of us a reason to remember how much we love our people on one particular day of the year. I know damn well my people deserve better than you, hell some days they deserve better than me! Two years ago my husband fell in love with me without your help, and for some reason I'm fortunate enough to find myself still basking in it.
Take a hike Cupid, I got this. It's all me. I'm not sure I want to have you to thank for a "romantic evening" anyways.
Hit the road jack,
and don't ya come back no more no more.....
