Posted on

Herding Kittens…

A few days ago, I had a disturbing incident while herding kittens across the mall parking lot. Ok, maybe they were cheerleaders…but it felt strangely similar. My daughter’s cheer squad is composed of ten girls between the ages of eight and twelve.  Imagine a pre-pubescent tapestry of girl drama, crazed Justin Bieber fans, and fragile hormones in bloom.  Get the picture?

So the little cats, I mean cheerleaders, had an all day practice at the church to prepare for competition.  Once the whining started, their cheer coach, called a time-out and we headed over to the food court at the mall for lunch.  The mall is in walking distance from the church, but can be a treacherous journey because of the steep hill and few sidewalks.  On top of the danger factor, I had the baby with me, harnessed securely in her stroller, so the mama bear factor was in full effect.  I was a fierce woman protecting her baby and cheer cubs.

On the way back, full of Sprite and tacos, the girls were extra boisterous, and the coach and I cajoled and pleaded with the girls to stay on the side-walk.  They gave each other piggy back rides, gossiped, yelled out cheers at the top of their lungs, and made sure that all cars passing by noticed their utter cuteness. I felt somewhat helpless trying to corral them, but I gave it my best shot.  We tried a different route on the way back, hoping for a little less anxiety, but inevitably we rounded another corner with no sidewalk.  Very carefully, I instructed the girls to hug the side of the street, and we marched two by two around the turn.  In the blink of an eye, a woman driving a white Mercedes whipped around the corner, in the wrong lane, and headed straight for us.  Fortunately, she made eye contact at the last second and swerved out-of-the-way.

The coach yelled at her to slow down.  So the lady obliged.  She slowed down long enough to give us a dirty look and glare at us. In my best pastor’s wife voice I said, “Please, go ahead and speed back up.  I am sure you can kill someone else!”

Ok, maybe that was Satan’s voice, but I did say it in a syrupy sweet tone. In response, she whipped her finger out of the car, shouted an expletive beginning with F… and ending with You, and then used the corresponding hand motion.  This woman actually flipped off a baby, two mothers and a passel of cheerleaders.  What is the world coming to?

The girls were shocked and I was stunned.   The coach and I looked at each other in disbelief. This woman, who had almost killed a group of children while driving in the wrong lane, and speeding no less, had just given us the bird.  Please tell me how you explain that to a group of little girls. 

“Girls, the psycho lady didn’t mean to act so ugly, she was just having a bad day.”

In all reality, we were too frightened to say much.  The near brush with death had sobered up even the most hyper girls of the bunch, and for a few moments, all were subdued. But little girls have short memories, and soon their gaiety returned, albeit…their steps were more careful and their eyes more alert.

I have to wonder though, what kind of hurry was the lady in? Was a sale at the mall worth a life in prison for vehicular manslaughter?  Is any event, appointment, or momentary drama worth risking a life for? 

And most importantly…where do I need to slow down in my life and stop taking dangerous short-cuts?

Posted on

Jr. High Boys and the I Love Boobies Campaign

Article first published as Jr. High Boys and the I Love Boobies Campaign on Technorati.

My twelve year old son has recently become an advocate for breast cancer awareness.  Who knew he was so compassionate about fighting cancer? He even wore a pink armband in his last football game.  And though I am excited that I can actually find him on the football field in a dog pile, his obsession with NFL.com/pink raises some big red flags for this mama.  Now call me naive….but I wonder if his sudden interest has any connection to do with the “I Love Boobies” campaign?
In a brilliant marketing scheme, capitalizing on our hyper sexualized culture, the keep a Breast Foundation folks have certainly generated publicity, but at what cost? Is an adolescent boy with raging hormones their intended audience?  Because, quite frankly, his parents hold the checkbook and it’s only pissing me off, not helping their cause.  There are plenty of non-profits legitimately raising funds for breast cancer research that I am more apt to support versus the ones exploiting boobs for cash. 
Why this campaign smells like a rat:

 
• It’s Offensive

 
First of all, our national obsession with artificially enhanced breasts has absolutely nothing to do with a cancer victim fighting to save her life.  While Heidi Montag may be the epitome of the Girls Gone Wild mentality, having boobs the size of a beach ball doesn’t evoke a lot of sympathy to a woman facing death and a double mastectomy.  If anything, it trivializes the devastation to both her breasts and the disease itself.  If I saw an infant wearing an I Love Boobies t-shirt, I might be more prone to levity, but on a pimply teen, it’s just plain offensive. This campaign objectifies a woman as a sexual object instead of a human being battling a serious illness.
Tracy Clark-Flory put it this way. “When death is truly knocking at your door — and I’m not talking about early, uncertain cases — most aren’t thinking about how much they love their breasts, they’re thinking about how much they love not being dead. They’re thinking: Chop those things off, now.”
• What’s the real message?

 
I also have two daughters at home and I can only speculate what this message conveys to them?  Do we love hurting women or just their mammary offering to society? What is the worth of a woman… her contribution to society or her bra size? And, what’s next? Do we allow our girls to run around in Juicy sweats with “I Love Colons” plastered on their little bottoms? How about an “I Love Balls” t-shirt?  Does this really heighten awareness or advance perversity masquerading as a worthy cause?
• What are the Consequences?

 
And for those that minimize this, I would argue that the battle for our sons to protect them from a lifetime addiction to pornography starts here. During the most impressionable age of sexual identification, this is another area of compromise alluring to our children.
Ron Hogan at PopFi stated, “Maybe some kids are just wearing these bands because they say “boobies” on them. But “who cares?” The bracelets are getting out an important message. Besides, students are exposed to “much worse things than breast-themed bracelets” at school every day.
Who Cares?  I do!  And while we can’t protect our children from everything, schools do try and limit their exposure to harmful behaviors. I would argue that the very same reasons why schools outlaw guns, sexual harassment, bullying, and gay bashing also motivate them to ban these bracelets from the playground.  Why would it ever be beneficial to degrade a woman fighting cancer?
Breast cancer is destructive in its own right.  Exploiting our kids in the interest of propagating an ad campaign doesn’t further the cause.So, even though I love breasts, particurally cancer free ones…I won’t be buying any of their bracelets for my pree-teen son to show my support

Read more: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/family/article/jr-high-boys-and-the-i/page-2/#ixzz132PETejm

Related Articles
Posted on

Nonsense

I was a journalism major in college, and then a theatre major, moved to political science, and  finally graduated with a degree in history.  My BA should have an MA in ADD.  Summing up all my skills, I think this qualifies me to write a little about a lot or maybe a lot of nonsense.  I found out the other day nonsense is actually a language and you don’t need Rosetta Stone to become proficient at it.  My daughter and her friend were in the back of the car arguing about whether it was a real language or not.  So we looked it up on  Wikipedia.  Turns out my daughter was right.  Nonsense is  real as much as reality sometimes seems like nonsense.

Nonsense is a verbal communication or written text that is spoken or written in a human language or other symbolic system but lacks any coherent meaning. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it.

An example of nonsense: when you are just on the verge of falling asleep and you say random things to your spouse with absolutely no context for the current conversation. Our subconscious mind on the edge of slumber can turn the most articulate person into a babbling fool.  Oh, if only we had tape recorders in those moments. I love it when my husband snuggles into the pillow, then blurts out, “What did the guy in green the car say?”

I think he said, “You’re out of gas, Mr. Over-tired!”

Literary nonsense takes it one step further and for a writer is a cornucopia of delicious words to play with.  In its essence, literary nonsense is contradiction using correct grammar that results in any lack of meaning. The saying, “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”  penned by Noam Chomsky is an example of nonsense.

So in honor of fall, autumn and the pure love of spooky words , here is a stab at some Jabberwocky(a poem of nonsense).

The jack-o-lanterns menacing grin lulled the small child into a state of tranquility.

The sweet comfort of terror filling the night with peace.

Snickers and candy corn creating a cacophony of song

And blackest  midnight dancing a jig with dawn.

Related Articles
Posted on

BOO!

Un balle-à-leunettes - a jack-o-lantern
Image via Wikipedia

My family moved into a suburban neighborhood like no other this last year.

It is akin to Wisteria lane on steroids.

Currently there are 49 children on our block.  Our home, a taupe colored shingled Craftsman, sits on the corner with a large wrap around porch and is dead center in the hub of activity.

Summer nights are filled with shrieks and laughter, street barbecues and ditch’em, hide and seek and babies in diapers crawling around on the grass as mommies linger outside to milk in the last rays of light.

Every fantasy I envisioned of a loving community of people doing life together has been more than fulfilled when I look out my window in the morning and see neighbors smiling and waving.

Coming from a cramped condo with three kids, there aren’t enough words to describe this bliss.  Now as Fall approaches, we are being indoctrinated into a new series of neighborhood rituals.

The Halloween decorations are beginning to pop up…pumpkins and spiders, webs and ghouls.  The trees are glowing with orange jack-o-lantern lights and scarecrows smiling at sinister zombies.

Our street is reminiscent of a Normal Rockwell painting juxtaposed with cheap Costco decorations.  It is Americana at it’s finest…awesome and over commercialized.

A few nights ago, I was at home cuddled up on the sofa writing. My older kids and husband were at sports practice,while the baby played at my feet and dismantled the neatly kept playroom, one toy at a time.  Out of the blue, the doorbell rang and I heard leaves crunching, feet running away and heavy breathing.

I nervously peered out the peephole, and saw nothing but ominous darkness. Wisteria lane had become Hysteria Lane in my mind as I conjured up home invasions and kidnappers.  I bolted the door and walked to the window.  Then it rang again, but this time I spied little feet running away and ascertained that it was a small child and probably not a big threat.  I slowly opened the door and looked around.  In front of the doorstep was a big bag filled with goodies.

On the outside of the bag…was the word BOO!

Inside the BOO bag were Halloween crafts, pumpkin decorating tools, outdoor decorations, candy, shoelaces and a letter.  It explained that we needed to display an orange pumpkin cutout that said BOO on our home and within two days repeat this activity to two  neighbors.  If the plan worked, by Halloween our whole neighborhood would be a BOO friendly zone, and every child would share in the excitement.

My kids were so excited when they came home and quickly dug into their booty.  Then we plotted and planned who would be the recipient of our booing.

Choosing which neighbors to BOO was the hard part, but we unanimously decided upon the new family across the street, with two little ones and our neighbor behind us, who is a widowed father. First we assembled the bags.  Dog bones, pretzels, ghost marshmallows, assorted candy and freshly baked cookies for the neighbor behind us.  For the young family we found Halloween cut-outs, plastic spiders, candy, cookies and toy boats handmade for their toddler boy.  We giggled and delighted in our efforts, then headed out the door on a mission to spook our neighbors and bless them.

First, we hit the neighbors with the little kids.  They live in a beautiful yellow clapboard home with a white picket fence and large front yard.  A little red baby swing hangs from the eaves of their porch and toys are scattered askew.

My son slowly opened their front gate, tip-toed up to the door, rang the doorbell and bolted.  The baby and I watched from our front window, while my daughter hid behind a car in their driveway with my son.  The young dad peered out his front door,  but didn’t see anyone. They have a beveled glass top door, so we were fortunate to be able to watch his reactions.

He looked around suspiciously, then slowly opened the door and spied the BOO bag.  He looked around again as my kids, hiding in his driveway stifled guffaws, then picked up the bag and upon realizing it was a surprise, called out for his little boy and they happily tore into the bag.  Mission accomplished!  We tricked them and then treated them…mmmm, I wonder if that’s how it all started?

House number two was a different type of BOO.  Not long before we moved in, our neighbor behind us had lost his wife to cancer.  He was still living in her dream home, a romantic Spanish style abode with a lush yard and arched entryway.  His daughter, a beautiful girl in her mid-twenties, had moved home to help with her mother’s care in the last days.  She is still living with him, and slowly recapturing her spirit after the devastation.  The younger son is in college but also lives at home.  He doesn’t smile much and keeps his distance.  They are fragile, at best, and we desperately wanted to make things better.  So we BOO’d them.  A simple but intentional move to show them we cared.

Our plan was to plant our nine month old baby on the doorstep, armed with a glow stick and the BOO bag.  I hid closely behind the arch as we rang the bell.  But in our sneaky plans, we forgot about their dog.  Bullet, a large Siberian Husky bounded up to the door barking furiously.  In a flash, I grabbed the baby who started crying.  Tim opened the door and there I stood…with a crying baby, a BOO bag, and two older kids yelling at me, “abort, abort.”.

I was a BOO failure!

Then Tim called the dog off and asked me what I was doing.  Before I could say anything, he saw the bag.  “Are you BOOing me?” he asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t do a very good job,” I said.

He didn’t say anything more, took the bag from my hands and slowly shut the door. Just before it closed he looked up at me and smiled.

So , maybe our covert operation was more awkward than finely tuned, but our hearts were full and our souls nourished as we headed home. The BOOing had allowed us, for a moment in time, to be a part of something bigger and to step out of the ordinary and mundane in our lives.  We learned that being a  neighbor isn’t just about living in a neighborhood…it’s about engaging in the stories of humanity. Mr. Rogers put it this way, “If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

And as I drifted off to sleep that night, a familiar song of childhood came to mind… “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Won’t you be my neighbor?”

http://www.suite101.com/content/start-a-halloween-tradition-with-a-friendly-boo-a73964

Related Articles
Posted on

Wisdom from the Gabba’s

Yo Gabba Gabba Live! @ the Wang
Image by bradsearles via Flickr

 

  

The Top 10… from Yo Gabba Gabba

  1. Sometimes it rains on our parade.  Stuff happens.  Life is hard.  Disappointments are inevitable.  Tears fall like raindrops.  But, when Muno is sad, his Gabba friends find him an umbrella and teach him how to dance in the rain.
  2. Don’t bite your friends!  Biting hurts our friends.  Take out your aggression on some watermelon. 
  3. I have never seen a chubby guy in orange tights rock it like Jack Black!  Who knew a sexy jig could make it on Nick Jr.?  Take note Katy Perry.  Time to switch networks.
  4. There is an inside voice and an outside voice.  Our job is to figure out when it’s ok to be obnoxiously loud and when we need to whisper our snide comments. 
  5. When in doubt, make a funny face!  Laugh like a hyena.  Giggle uncontrollably.  Pee your pants and fall down.  If you need help on this…go back to lesson #3 and watch Jack Black.  Hysterical
  6. Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid!  Nuff said!
  7. Team work is good.  If you and your Duck buddies work together, you too could steal the University of Washington Helmut Golf Cart and light it on fire.  I’m not saying you should…I’m just saying.
  8. Just dance. My name is Sam and I like to dance!  Show off your moves in a t-shirt with your favorite Gabba.  I like Roby.  He is the little green one with the long arms. 
  9. Drawing is fun.  Find your inner artist.  Create.  Be fully alive.  Use crayons.
  10. There is a DJ who controls the music.  He pushes the buttons, teaches the lessons, and eventually puts all the characters back in the box.  Smart Gabba’s get to know the DJ!
Posted on

Why Christian kids rebel…

 

Tim Kimmel, in his book, “Why Christian Kids Rebel,” explains the number one reason that children walk away from the faith is that they never see it make a real difference in the lives of their parents.

This inspires me to use my life as a curriculum…  tracing the hand of God in my past stories, but also constantly looking for ways to exemplify Jesus today in both my triumphs and failures. I point out answers to things we’ve prayed about. I show them the many ways God provides and make sure they know where credit is due. I live my faith out loud and up front so they cannot miss that Christ is at the center of our home. He has to become too real to deny.

Where I am challenged is in making sure my attitude doesn’t discredit the reality of Christ. Not that I feel the pressure to be perfect, but I do have to be on guard when I’m tired, drained, hormonal, or frustrated by something or dare I say someone? I must press into God, ask for His strength, and allow Him to fill my emotional gaps.  Oh yeah…and get enough rest (not so easy with three kids). Otherwise, it’s easy to respond in the flesh, leaving a wake of tears behind me. But even when I fail, the reality of Jesus can be seen in how I handle my failure. Oh here it comes…my favorite catch phrase, “It’s all about the rebound!” If I am quick to humble myself, ask for forgiveness and model redemption, it speaks volumes to my kids.

I hope that someday, the things my children remember – their stories – will resemble a parable reflecting God’s hand in their lives; the reality of Christ’s presence that can be shared with their own children in the years to come.

Related Articles
  • Speak (anointedplace.wordpress.com)
Posted on

Hi Da Da!

My baby decided to start talking.  After almost nine months of love, care and devotion, my little princess took her “first step” in verbal communication and moved beyond baby babble to string two words together.

I should be happy about this momentous developmental milestone but I find myself struggling.  This is the sweet little baby girl who nursed at my bosom, took 22 hours to deliver, and who watches the 4:30am early show with me each day over a bottle and coffee(while daddy sleeps).

After endless rounds of poopy diapers and my shoes covered in spit up, mama thought she might get some love. But to my dismay, the little angel that I dress in Carters with matching bows, play endless rounds of peek-a-boo with, and carry around in a sling like a kangaroo… shouted across a football field for all to hear, “Hi Da Da!”

My baby is a traitor.

When I try to get her to say “Hi Mama,” she smiles a big gummy grin, her one baby tooth poking through, and enunciates very carefully…”Hi Da Da.”

My husband loves every minute of Baby Benedict Arnold.

He proudly announced to our friends tonight that the baby prefers him, and then he chortled and winked at me.  We both know who does the heavy lifting for our little bundle of joy and his delight in the baby’s recognition of him is both genuine and tongue in cheek. He is careful to remind me of our deep connection and though his words are reassuring, baby’s first sentence has touched on something deeper than a daddy vs. mommy competition…my baby is growing up.

Despite his incessant goading, I can understand why my husband is so jazzed. The bond between a mother and baby is formidable and all too often daddy’s feel left out.  The baby cries when mommy leaves and daddy begins to both anticipate and dread time alone with her.  And though some dad’s are the primary caregiver and nurturer, most dad’s are just biding their time with baby until they are strong enough to be launched in the air and can play catch with.  As baby made a move towards him, he felt validated as a father and respected for his contribution.

So baby’s shout out to dad was as much a developmental milestone for her as it was for mom and dad.  For mom it represents the first in a long line of moments of baby separating and becoming independent. Baby chooses what she wants to say and asserts her burgeoning sense of self.  For dad, her words represent the promise of a deeper relationship as she moves out of infancy and becomes a little person capable of interaction.

And though I am still waiting for “Hi mama,” I can look into her innocent little eyes and delight at her achievement, while subtlety ignoring my husband’s heckling.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...