Well, we are heading into poop-stink season, or as the rest of you like to call it, spring. For a person with a heightened sense of smell and three dogs, this is pretty much damp shit season.
Molly and I are flying solo for a few days, and for those of you thinking "you are publishing that you are alone on the internet?" I have three psychotic dogs and am a pretty good shot. Robbing people in the woods is probably a little Darwinish.
After we dropped her dad off at the airport Molly and i went to the kangaroo farm where Molly proceeded to photobomb every single person in the farm's photos. She just can't help herself, she loves animals to the point of being completely blinded by the cuteness. She is a lot like her mom. Honestly what's not to like? If they are not in the mood, a kangaroo with just drop kick you. No subtlety at all, and I respect that.
It's been a pretty up and down end of winter, we spend most of it with the plague, which was less than cool. It did bring up a lot of funny stuff though. Pun intended. Molly asked me for a drink of juice one day and then exorcist-puked it right back at me, and that would have been funny enough. But then that was also the week she decided to be captain phonepants and call everyone and talk to them at length, and I got to hear her tell EVERY.SINGLE PERSON who asked how she was doing that she puked, and i quote; "I puked really bad, juice everywhere. I am calling it a juicepuke. It was okay cause it tasted okay. Juicepuke, you ever done it before?" like juice-puking was this hip and happening thing that people really need to catch onto. Seriously? Haven't you juicepuked? All the cool kids are doing it.
This week as we are prepping the yard Molly is renewed with her pursuit of animal ownership. It's not enough that we have 3 dogs and 3 cats and all I do is mop and cry, she needs 2 goats, and 2 sheep, and - now because the fool woman at the kangaroo farm told me they sell them - 2 kangaroos, and 4 horses and 2 alpacas. Seems like a legit shopping list, no?
Sam and I can't yet see eye to eye on the goats just yet. He in his annoyingly logical way does not want something in our yard that will eat anything and whose only purpose is to faint and therefore make me laugh. I, a person who completely lacks in logic but makes up for it in batshit crazy, just keep showing him this as my rebuttal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnVv0RkiG4U
I win right? Molly laughs like an 80 year old man when she watches this video. Anyway, today we were discussing kangaroo ownership and she let me know that they wouldn't be too expensive because they hunt their own food to which I had to ask "Molly, what do kangaroos eat?" "grass, flowers and birds that can't fly."...makes sense I guess. Must suck to be a bird that can't fly in Australia.
Then we went out to clean the chicken pen, I was putting some new dirt down for the stinky bastards when I looked down to see Molly lovingly holding a chicken by the face. "Oh Chicken Butt," she said, "Want to know how I named you? I looked into your eyes, and I just KNEW. I knew that you would be Chicken Butt forever and ever."
She does actually have some kinship with animals that is truly special. I can't even touch the chickens without them getting all ridiculous and feathery, but she can stare romantically into a chicken's eyes and hold it in her hands and it seems just as captivated as she is.
So after this weird little moment with Chicken Butt, we are having a chat about pets and responsibility and all the chores that would be required to keep this insane Canadian zoo that she is planning. She looks extremely thoughtful hanging on to her demented chicken friend, and then she comes up with her version of a negotiation;
"Mom, I think I got this. If we get all the animals, I will feed them, and ride them, and I will love them and take care of them and walk them and wash them. I will love them and they will love me. I will do EVERYTHING....(big pause) I will do everything except clean up their shit. That will be your job cause you are really really super good at cleaning."
Friday, March 28, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Some Mollyisms
I can totally see why from the outside my 'chose not to be parent' friends are feeling like they got the golden ticket and they will be musically crunching magic mushrooms - er chocolate - with Willy Wonka in a few minutes. It's kind of messy, there is very little of that full on pass the fuck out sleep, and it is bloody expensive. But from the inside there are messy little nuggets of gold. I don't think parenting is for everyone and I think we owe it to the world not to harass the living shit out of our childless friends with obligatory "You're missing out"isms. For me though there is nothing quite as amazing as that I created this little person that has my eyes, my hair and my psychotic temper, and is also entirely her own little sweet, smarmy, world dominating self.
So today I am just going to throw down a few Mollyisms that I have been storing up, because I hear that some of you are missing out.
A few months ago Sam and I were going through the ordeal of selling our house. We were getting stretched pretty thin and i was in a piss poor state, and my little comedian seemed to sense that she was needed on stage. I was sitting in the kitchen getting mentally beyond stretched when I heard light chuckling in the bathroom. The laughing got louder and louder and finally she came running out of the bathroom naked with about 1 foot of toilet paper wedged between her butt cheeks, yelling "I'm a whitetail deer! Get it mom? I'm a whitetail deer!"
My mom got her a Rockin' Elmo for Christmas one year, and she headbanged so hard to "Elmo's gonna rock" that she fell off the patio and hit her head on the bbq. I picked her up and asked her if she was okay and she said she "was clearly rocking out too hard that time mom"
One day when I was feeling too ill to take her to the horses I said "I'm sorry buddy, we can't do that today, Mom feels like crap" and she actually looked me up and down and said "Because of your hair?" Talk about kicking me while I was down.
For three months when she was really small and just learning words she would wake me up EVERY day with the same routine. She would crawl out of bed, grab her stuffie, whack me in the face with it and say the only "word" that mattered to her at the time. "Getupfrenchtoast!"
The Christmas when she was three we went out to dinner and as we were coming home Molly was sound asleep. Sam took her inside and up to bed as I discovered that one of our jerk dogs had peed on the couch! So as Sam is tucking Molly in I am reaming out
the dogs.
The next morning Sam and I rush around trying to make her Christmas morning all magical and when we're ready Sam creeps upstairs and says "Molly, guess who was here last night? SANTA" And she sleepily replied. "Yeah he was, and he peed all over the damn couch!"
That's all for now. LD
So today I am just going to throw down a few Mollyisms that I have been storing up, because I hear that some of you are missing out.
A few months ago Sam and I were going through the ordeal of selling our house. We were getting stretched pretty thin and i was in a piss poor state, and my little comedian seemed to sense that she was needed on stage. I was sitting in the kitchen getting mentally beyond stretched when I heard light chuckling in the bathroom. The laughing got louder and louder and finally she came running out of the bathroom naked with about 1 foot of toilet paper wedged between her butt cheeks, yelling "I'm a whitetail deer! Get it mom? I'm a whitetail deer!"
My mom got her a Rockin' Elmo for Christmas one year, and she headbanged so hard to "Elmo's gonna rock" that she fell off the patio and hit her head on the bbq. I picked her up and asked her if she was okay and she said she "was clearly rocking out too hard that time mom"
One day when I was feeling too ill to take her to the horses I said "I'm sorry buddy, we can't do that today, Mom feels like crap" and she actually looked me up and down and said "Because of your hair?" Talk about kicking me while I was down.
For three months when she was really small and just learning words she would wake me up EVERY day with the same routine. She would crawl out of bed, grab her stuffie, whack me in the face with it and say the only "word" that mattered to her at the time. "Getupfrenchtoast!"
The Christmas when she was three we went out to dinner and as we were coming home Molly was sound asleep. Sam took her inside and up to bed as I discovered that one of our jerk dogs had peed on the couch! So as Sam is tucking Molly in I am reaming out
the dogs.
The next morning Sam and I rush around trying to make her Christmas morning all magical and when we're ready Sam creeps upstairs and says "Molly, guess who was here last night? SANTA" And she sleepily replied. "Yeah he was, and he peed all over the damn couch!"
That's all for now. LD
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Decking the halls and then hitting the Bailey's
These are the little gems I procured while shopping with my tiny evil genius today.
At my hubby's work a well dressed and quite proper woman set my daughter up for her FIRST. AWESOME. JOKE! She has been trying joking lately but most of them have been pretty meh.
To be clear I am not sure how much the woman appreciated it but Sam and the staff at his workplace thought it was as golden, as did I.
The woman looked at Molly in her pigtails and cuteness and said "Wow, don't you have the most beautiful red hair!" to which Molly replied "Yep, I'm a redhead. Better than a redneck!" and then guffawed like a drunk maniac...I am so proud.
Next we popped by Santa's workshop at ye olde mall, where she proceeded to place an order with Santa for "a fish, a duck, a swan and a mermaid" A slightly older man overheard her request and asked if she wanted real animals which earned him a seriously scrunched up nose. "of course not! They would poop all over Santa's bag!" and then as we walked away she gave me a conspiratorial look and said "Mom, that guy doesn't know mermaids aren't real! Do you believe that?"
She was clearly filled with the spirit of the season, and I don't mean that of the psycho shoppers. She hugged EVERYONE we met up with today, invited the woman at the grocery store to come meet our chickens and eat some eggs and told her that the eggs "Just POP! Right out of the Chicken Buts! Can you believe it? It's CRAZY!"
She told me Jeff, our friend who prints my stickers and canvases, was "just wonderful" and on the drive over wondered aloud if she told him she loved him if he would say he loved her back. She told me he is such an amazing guy for "just printing all those stickers and having water and candy in his office." and when we arrived at Jeff's she shyly blurted out "Jeff! I just love you!" and thankfully she WAS rewarded with an "i love you" in return. In the truck on the way home she said, "I am so glad he loved me back, if he didn't I was going to hide in my own pants."
And then the piece de resistance was her "Christmas Song", a real gem. After a day of shopping on the drive home Molly asked me if she could sing me a Christmas song. And now I share it will all of you in all it's yuletide glory.
"Cats eat birds, and dogs eat birds.
They grab up the birds and they crunch, crunch crunch.
Kittens eat birds, yep bi-i-irds,
they all eat birds and they chew them all up.
They chew chew chew chew cheee--ee-ew
What comes next? Well they go outside
and of course they take a po-oo-ooop"
Merry Christmannukaholidaykwanzayule.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
If your children are a reflection of you, I am a pantless smart ass
 |
| Evidence of my smartassery. I love to decorate my pets. A few weeks ago Molly proved to me once again it is better for us to have dinner parties at home. We have only lived in the woods now for a few months, but already she is only a loincloth and some fuzzy cartoon singing friends away from being a vine-swinging, yodelling half monkey. |
Admittedly dinner was a three meat carnivorous feast fit only for cave people, and so maybe she went meat stupid, I can only assume at this point. But immediately after dinner Molly asked politely to be excused, then proceeded to stand in front of the table, rip off her dinner cape - yes your read that right - then her shirt, then her everything else, and start mooning everyone and doing a little naked dance while yelling "Party Naked! Party Naked! Party Naked!"
Thankfully I wasn't hosting Martha Stewart and her entourage on this fine evening. I think they would have taken one look at the carelessly hung Christmas lights in the yard and hightailed it out before dinner - or I, or Molly's nude dancing - had a chance to offend.
So with that little performance as the beginning, we head into the dreaded Christmas season. Up until the ginger beast was born, Sam and I were unified by -among other things- a mutual distaste for all things Christmas. When Molly came into the world we have been slowly letting Christmas eek into our lives with every more consciously human year. But we try really really hard not to let her get all caught up in the consumer crapness after her her third Christmas, when I bought her a piano and Sam bought her a baby quad and her family members seemingly bought out a mall and she just drove the quad straight at the piano and played music in a catatonic state and refused to come down from her quad/piano hybrid vehicle to even look at the other presents. So after that we have put a bit of a simmer on Christmas psychosis.
As soon as the snow began to fall I slipped into one of those "I will never.." hypocrite things that a mom thinks she will never do. And then does. See what she didn't know until having a child is that using a mythical fat man that B&Es your house and steals your cookies as a pre-Christmas threat is actually brilliance.
So as Molly and I travel around making merry and sampling way too much other people food she can tend to turn into a raging ginger psychopath and I've found myself telling her that I was going to tell Santa if she didn't stop being naughty. Once again she found a way to prove to me that it is only a matter of time - by which I mean 3-4 weeks - before she is smarter than me.
It started when I decided to decorate the living shit out of our living room. First attempt, I was getting a little too merry with the rum and eggnog all by myself, got tired of decorating and just went with dancing around to Culture Club with a garland boa until I tripped over some ornaments. Second attempt I just decorated Kevin Costner to look like a garland lion, and he looked freaking amazing. And third time's a charm, I got my shit together, and accomplished some real decorating.
 |
| Isn't he Costneriffic? |
Then she came downstairs, held her hands close to her heart like some orphan in a made-for-tv movie, and yelled "Mom! It's SPLENDID! (Splendid? WTF?) Santa is going to LOVEITSOOOOMUCH!!" making all my failed attempts, and giving up my Christmas loathing, totally worth it.
The next morning I found her on her Kermit phone; "Sh, mom. I'm talking to Santa" and when she got off the phone she said in an oh-so-serious tone. "Mom, I have just been talking to Santa, and HE told ME I could be naughty OR nice this year." ...well then.
 |
| Apparently she gets an OK from the big guy |
xoxo love,
Lucy D., Sam, Molly, KevinCostner, Oliver McPoot, Lubba Tub, Meuwford, MeowMeow and of course, Star Kitty.
Friday, October 18, 2013
6 reasons to seriously consider breeding with redheads
To whomever came up with the phrase "terrible twos"...
Since you are probably dead, I feel as though I owe it to new parents everywhere to bitchslap your descendents. The reason for this is that I coasted through those twos thinking "THIS is as bad as it gets? Wicked, this is a cakewalk!!" Molly at two was a redheaded angel, an absolute cherub of nicety. Three was a delightful preview of four to come. And as if she magically knew it was time for a change, on her fourth birthday Molly began to make the terrible twos seem like an instagrammed version of a sunny day with Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years.
So here are 6 gems that only this week came out of the mouth of a girl who is obviously superfantastically adorable as a natural defence so I don't feel compelled to sell her.
1. Molly observes me struggling through the house with a giant load of wood while she is playing with her megablocks
"Molls could you please open the gate for mom?"
"I'm super busy engineering right now mom, but you can do it yourself, I just know it!"
2. Molly is playing with the herd of six kittens before bed one night looking very very sweet until she throws down this creepy idea;
"hey kittens, do you want to play knife knife?"
3. Again with the kittens.
"Mom, I want to call this one TickleBum"
Me not exactly hearing her; "Sorry, you want to call a kitten TickleTrunk?"
"No, mom! TICKLEBUM! Tickletrunk, that's just stupid."
4. Picking up my little ginger spice from preschool;
"Hey kid, how was school?"
"So good mom! Nobody even got freaking mad at me today!"
5. Bringing a new friend over
"That's Meowmeow, she is really nice, that's Meuwford, he will try and kill you."
...resulting in a child who is now terrified of cats...great.
6. ...needs no intro
"Hey Molly, come eat dinner."
"Dinner smells like ass mom." (with her thumb in the air, suggesting that this is something she heard but does not understand it to be very insulting.)
Since you are probably dead, I feel as though I owe it to new parents everywhere to bitchslap your descendents. The reason for this is that I coasted through those twos thinking "THIS is as bad as it gets? Wicked, this is a cakewalk!!" Molly at two was a redheaded angel, an absolute cherub of nicety. Three was a delightful preview of four to come. And as if she magically knew it was time for a change, on her fourth birthday Molly began to make the terrible twos seem like an instagrammed version of a sunny day with Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years.
So here are 6 gems that only this week came out of the mouth of a girl who is obviously superfantastically adorable as a natural defence so I don't feel compelled to sell her.
1. Molly observes me struggling through the house with a giant load of wood while she is playing with her megablocks
"Molls could you please open the gate for mom?"
"I'm super busy engineering right now mom, but you can do it yourself, I just know it!"
2. Molly is playing with the herd of six kittens before bed one night looking very very sweet until she throws down this creepy idea;
"hey kittens, do you want to play knife knife?"
3. Again with the kittens.
"Mom, I want to call this one TickleBum"
Me not exactly hearing her; "Sorry, you want to call a kitten TickleTrunk?"
"No, mom! TICKLEBUM! Tickletrunk, that's just stupid."
4. Picking up my little ginger spice from preschool;
"Hey kid, how was school?"
"So good mom! Nobody even got freaking mad at me today!"
5. Bringing a new friend over
"That's Meowmeow, she is really nice, that's Meuwford, he will try and kill you."
...resulting in a child who is now terrified of cats...great.
6. ...needs no intro
"Hey Molly, come eat dinner."
"Dinner smells like ass mom." (with her thumb in the air, suggesting that this is something she heard but does not understand it to be very insulting.)
Monday, October 7, 2013
Poop is funny
I think I have covered my bases pretty well this far, but if you find poop offensive, or the word fuck, move on. There are really cute blogs about crafts and lovely children, and this is not one of those.
When I was younger I had dogs and cats and whatnot, and I was really the most squeamish of humans. If our super old and partially evil terrier happened to poop in the house and I happened to be the first one "on scene" I would clean it, but in the most dramatically disgusted manor, and with a LOT of gagging.
Parenthood, if you haven't had the chance to experience it, throws your squeamish and disgusted ways right out the door so very very fast. From the moment your child is born they begin to do pretty disgusting things, and you either sink or swim in all that puke and snot and poop. Honestly I think they make kids superduper adorable so you can forgive them for being so disgusting.
As my friend Al so poignantly explained it; "You will find yourself feeling pretty self-congratulatory, You're out of the house! You don't look like a fucking trainwreck! You've done it! Until some guy in the grocery store behind you taps you on the shoulder and says 'excuse me, but you have puke all down the back of your shirt.'" Parenthood is messy.
So things that i used to find not funny at all I suddenly find hysterical. And poop is most definitely one of those things.
Like the time Sam - who did not change a single diaper until forced to with his own child - screamed from the change table "Oh dear GOD! I have never seen a human shit before! Oh help me she is SHITTING, RIGHTTHISVERYMINUTE! Oh god make it stop!!" To some of you, not so funny perhaps, but to me this was parenthood gold.
When Molly had really and truly aced potty training she then became quite fascinated with poop. In a sciency way. I was sitting with her eating breakfast shortly after telling her how poop is made and in the most maniacally crazy of voices she blurted out; "Hey mom, wanna know something COOL??" If you would go get me an Xray machine, we could watch THIS piece of TOAST, (proudly waving toast in my face for the full effect) bounce bounce bounce down allll my bones and into my tummy and be turned into POOPS!! Isn't that just the coolest?"
When I was younger I had dogs and cats and whatnot, and I was really the most squeamish of humans. If our super old and partially evil terrier happened to poop in the house and I happened to be the first one "on scene" I would clean it, but in the most dramatically disgusted manor, and with a LOT of gagging.
Parenthood, if you haven't had the chance to experience it, throws your squeamish and disgusted ways right out the door so very very fast. From the moment your child is born they begin to do pretty disgusting things, and you either sink or swim in all that puke and snot and poop. Honestly I think they make kids superduper adorable so you can forgive them for being so disgusting.
As my friend Al so poignantly explained it; "You will find yourself feeling pretty self-congratulatory, You're out of the house! You don't look like a fucking trainwreck! You've done it! Until some guy in the grocery store behind you taps you on the shoulder and says 'excuse me, but you have puke all down the back of your shirt.'" Parenthood is messy.
So things that i used to find not funny at all I suddenly find hysterical. And poop is most definitely one of those things.
Like the time Sam - who did not change a single diaper until forced to with his own child - screamed from the change table "Oh dear GOD! I have never seen a human shit before! Oh help me she is SHITTING, RIGHTTHISVERYMINUTE! Oh god make it stop!!" To some of you, not so funny perhaps, but to me this was parenthood gold.
When Molly had really and truly aced potty training she then became quite fascinated with poop. In a sciency way. I was sitting with her eating breakfast shortly after telling her how poop is made and in the most maniacally crazy of voices she blurted out; "Hey mom, wanna know something COOL??" If you would go get me an Xray machine, we could watch THIS piece of TOAST, (proudly waving toast in my face for the full effect) bounce bounce bounce down allll my bones and into my tummy and be turned into POOPS!! Isn't that just the coolest?"
She then took this bit of knowledge and used it to shame my friends' mother. I took her to a derby game and the sweetest of grandmothers offered to look after her. When this lovely grandmother was sitting and chatting with her she once again shared in her usual enthusiastic voice, the story of how poops are made. When said grandma said something along the lines of "wow, I never knew that." She looked at her with utter distaste and said "REALLY? Your mother should have taught you that!"
A few months ago Sam asked me to leave - gasp - my computer for 24 hours. I reluctantly agreed to his spontaneous camping trip, and we ended up having a really great night. On the way home Sam said "so Molly, did you have fun camping?" and she said, "Of course! I pooped in the forest! It was AWESOME!" Nevermind that we spent a night by the lake playing with the dogs, seeing tadpoles and frogs, and swimming and having a great time, she got to shit in the forest! Epic!
And finally, my favourite poop story happened this week. I was talking to a banker - one of my least favourite of all the ways to pass valuable time - and we were working out a timetable. Said snooty banker was going back about 5 years, and as she hemmed and hawed at her screen while keeping me on the phone for a record time considering I have a four year old, she felt the need to ask, "So it seems like about 4 years ago you were both doing quite well with your incomes, and then yours took a serious dip. Is there some sort of reason that your income took such a terrible dip?' to which Molly, with comedic timing Steve Martin would have appreciated, hollered "OHMYGODMOM!! You REALLY need to come see this! I took a HUGE poop, no seriously, it's WEIRD, it's GIANT, it's CRAZY!"
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Four
Warning: like most 3d objects I am unfortunately not an entirely one-sided only funny person. If you only wish to laugh, wait until next week, mmmk?
A little under five years ago two balls-to-the-walls nutjobs decided to procreate. Much like the completely insane blending of Jack Russell and Pitbull that made Kevin Costner into the brilliant dog he is today, but still doesn't sound like a great idea on paper, this was a dash of crazy mixed with a pinch of psychotic that made a beautiful redheaded mini-genius.
A few months into this I sat down with my midwife and she tried to figure out my due date. There was a lot of asking me about schedules and bullshit, to which i responded only in my head Who knows that shit? Really people know that?" Apparently a lot of you women do, and whoopity freaking do to you! Cheers you weirdos, way to pencil that shit in.
So we narrowed things down and she came to the due date of Sept.11.09. Well I spent the last 3 months of looking like a narwhal with a digestive problem talking to my little belly like a little league coach. I had no idea what he or she was going to be, because I elected to be surprised. As a side note, parenthood is pretty fucking shocking as is, so if you want to find out what sex your baby is don't worry, there will still be a shit-ton of other surprises waiting for you. So, since I had no idea who I was talking to, I settled on the name Cheeseborn of course, because really that could be a girls or boys name.
I pleaded with Cheeseborn to come early, two days early to be specific. Not only did I want my little human to come into the world on 09.09.09 but I just really really did not want her to come into the world on one of the most tragic days of my time here on earth. Now for all of you who want to mention that there are many more tragedies since, or that there were many before, I get it. I do. But this was a very in-my-face neighbourly tragedy.
I have definitely been accused of being too sensitive, too sad, to deep, thinking too much. With good reason. It sucks honestly. I spend hours upon hours trying to rescue every dog, crying about people I don't know who suffer all over the world, reading about things that I honestly cannot change but sure as shit wish I could. Sam actually put a stop to me reading the obituaries about two years ago because he thought it was just ridiculous to find me weeping while reading the morning paper. Seriously. What a dork I am! A very cynical human with a very crusty outer shell, but inside a heart of very soft cheese.
So today as I read all the posts about people who are still trying to understand what happened on 9/11, or what is for that matter happening right now, I got up from my chair and I ran. I ran like hell. I have to share my little bit of wisdom that I found on my run this morning, in the hope that it will help you as it helped me.
Focus on what you can, instead of what you can't. If you can no longer stand that people are being cruel to one another in countries you can't help, focus on helping one person today where you live. If you hate that there is still animal poaching going on in countries you can't reach and nobody seems to give a shit, put your time into protecting the wildlife right in your own.
And if the weight of cruelty that people have inflicted in our lifetime on one another is too much to bear for you right now, then look at someone who has no cruelty in them at all and put all of your effort into making sure that they stay that way. Right now I have a human in my life who just turned four, and who makes every.single.person she meets -from the store clerk down the street to the 8 kids she goes to daycare with -into her best friend. If you are a parent make it your responsibility to make sure that your tiny humans grow up with this kind of easy open love, protected and encouraged. Maybe we can make sure the next generation of humans corrects the seriously large fuckups of the last. I know how bleak the planet, the world and human nature can seem but not if you look right in your own backyard.
I don't want to ignore those without kids, because I genuinely see them doing this very thing. Donating to projects that are being created to fix the mess we've made. Protesting resorts that are just more useless bullshit we are going to regret later. "Well, we don't have any bears anymore but look at this fantastic fucking hotel! I know it looks like every other hotel, but this one is great because we destroyed an amazing eco system for it!" If you are looking for the good in the sea of badness that is Syria, and 9/11 and etc etc, you only have to look as far as your beautiful friends. When my sister got cancer last year they came out of the woodwork in a way that changed me forever. It's not an entirely bad planet is the point to my very long-winded rant on this fine day in the woods. It is a beautiful place, and it needs to be taken over by acts of good instead of given up on in times of trial.
End rant. Funny next week, I promise.
A little under five years ago two balls-to-the-walls nutjobs decided to procreate. Much like the completely insane blending of Jack Russell and Pitbull that made Kevin Costner into the brilliant dog he is today, but still doesn't sound like a great idea on paper, this was a dash of crazy mixed with a pinch of psychotic that made a beautiful redheaded mini-genius.
A few months into this I sat down with my midwife and she tried to figure out my due date. There was a lot of asking me about schedules and bullshit, to which i responded only in my head Who knows that shit? Really people know that?" Apparently a lot of you women do, and whoopity freaking do to you! Cheers you weirdos, way to pencil that shit in.
So we narrowed things down and she came to the due date of Sept.11.09. Well I spent the last 3 months of looking like a narwhal with a digestive problem talking to my little belly like a little league coach. I had no idea what he or she was going to be, because I elected to be surprised. As a side note, parenthood is pretty fucking shocking as is, so if you want to find out what sex your baby is don't worry, there will still be a shit-ton of other surprises waiting for you. So, since I had no idea who I was talking to, I settled on the name Cheeseborn of course, because really that could be a girls or boys name.
I pleaded with Cheeseborn to come early, two days early to be specific. Not only did I want my little human to come into the world on 09.09.09 but I just really really did not want her to come into the world on one of the most tragic days of my time here on earth. Now for all of you who want to mention that there are many more tragedies since, or that there were many before, I get it. I do. But this was a very in-my-face neighbourly tragedy.
I have definitely been accused of being too sensitive, too sad, to deep, thinking too much. With good reason. It sucks honestly. I spend hours upon hours trying to rescue every dog, crying about people I don't know who suffer all over the world, reading about things that I honestly cannot change but sure as shit wish I could. Sam actually put a stop to me reading the obituaries about two years ago because he thought it was just ridiculous to find me weeping while reading the morning paper. Seriously. What a dork I am! A very cynical human with a very crusty outer shell, but inside a heart of very soft cheese.
So today as I read all the posts about people who are still trying to understand what happened on 9/11, or what is for that matter happening right now, I got up from my chair and I ran. I ran like hell. I have to share my little bit of wisdom that I found on my run this morning, in the hope that it will help you as it helped me.
Focus on what you can, instead of what you can't. If you can no longer stand that people are being cruel to one another in countries you can't help, focus on helping one person today where you live. If you hate that there is still animal poaching going on in countries you can't reach and nobody seems to give a shit, put your time into protecting the wildlife right in your own.
And if the weight of cruelty that people have inflicted in our lifetime on one another is too much to bear for you right now, then look at someone who has no cruelty in them at all and put all of your effort into making sure that they stay that way. Right now I have a human in my life who just turned four, and who makes every.single.person she meets -from the store clerk down the street to the 8 kids she goes to daycare with -into her best friend. If you are a parent make it your responsibility to make sure that your tiny humans grow up with this kind of easy open love, protected and encouraged. Maybe we can make sure the next generation of humans corrects the seriously large fuckups of the last. I know how bleak the planet, the world and human nature can seem but not if you look right in your own backyard.
I don't want to ignore those without kids, because I genuinely see them doing this very thing. Donating to projects that are being created to fix the mess we've made. Protesting resorts that are just more useless bullshit we are going to regret later. "Well, we don't have any bears anymore but look at this fantastic fucking hotel! I know it looks like every other hotel, but this one is great because we destroyed an amazing eco system for it!" If you are looking for the good in the sea of badness that is Syria, and 9/11 and etc etc, you only have to look as far as your beautiful friends. When my sister got cancer last year they came out of the woodwork in a way that changed me forever. It's not an entirely bad planet is the point to my very long-winded rant on this fine day in the woods. It is a beautiful place, and it needs to be taken over by acts of good instead of given up on in times of trial.
End rant. Funny next week, I promise.
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