Saturday, August 31, 2013

But I'm Back!

Apparently, difficult things = more reason to blog, not less!  So, Hello.  I'm back already.

Here're my thoughts for the day:

1) Do not turn to the internet for parenting advice for it will reaffirm your reasons for feeling guilty and make you wonder if it would be better if you were dead (don't google "which is worse for kids, divorce or death?" because I can tell you the interwebs say divorce.  Hmm.  Well that's not reassuring.)


2) This poem is by Philip Larkin and it sums up parenting research tidily:

This Be the Verse

By Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.
 
 
3) Assuming it is too late (you have kids already) and you are doing something generally considered bad for your children (like, for example, leaving your spouse, their other parent, and moving out of the house), expect unexpected moments of empathy with society's other Wrongdoers.  Today, I'd be in a good frame of mind to befriend all kinds of folks who have Done Wrong, just to see how they deal with it.  So: if you're reading this and you happen to have killed your mother and then eaten her,  or if you happen to have on purpose killed a beloved family pet (or sibling), or if you have a habit of leaking high-level security documents to the press, please be in touch. 

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Conflagrations and Cessations

[Blogging hereby suspended for a while--maybe a month or so--while various difficult things happen.  Tune in again in October 2013 for renewed banalities, narcissistic musings and child witticisms]

Friday, August 16, 2013

Corporeal dilemmas: Clara

Clara: "Mummy, my skin isn't big enough for my face"
Daddy: [looking over his shoulder while driving] "Your lips are dry; you just need some lip balm."

Setting: car driving across Deal Island, Maryland. More on that and on vacation week in a subsequent post.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Slightly misspoken: Winton

"I did not have a pee pee accident.  Feel!  My crouch is not wet."

Friday, August 9, 2013

I shouldn't feel smug

about beating a 6 year old at chess, or about winning at bowling when playing with that 6 year old and her 4 year old brother but I do.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Overheard Phone Conversations

Clara [in voice of PTA mom, talking into a plastic bath toy]: "Oh.  That's very disappointing."

Winton [in voice of serial killer, talking into a stuffed dog]: "You'd better come over right now, or you will be dead forever."

Hmn . . .

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Birds, Bees, Paper Towels

Scene: Dinner table

Clara: "But, how do Mummies and Daddies get babies?"
Mummy: "Well . . ."
Clara [interrupting]: "It's something to do with their butts."
Mummy: "Actually,"
Clara [balling hands up and knocking them together--with a piece of paper towel in one hand] "Their naked butts."
Mummy [laughing at the graphic nature of Clara's hand gesture]
Winton: "Naked butts and paper towel!"
Mummy: "Well,"
Winton: "Naked butts WITH PAPER TOWELS!"
Mummy: "Actually, the paper towels aren't an essential part of the process."