Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Nasty, ugly debate

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I happened across a really troubling blog post on spanking and keeping kids in line and it made me wonder: with all the evidence that spanking makes kids violent, self-loathing, and diminished as human beings, why are so many people still advocating spanking as a discipline solution for their children?

One blogger talks about how children these days don’t know their place, and most of the appended comments recommend spanking. The blogger and commenters make the mistake of conflating spoiling with not spanking. There are plenty of parents who spank, yet spoil; and those who don’t spank, but don’t spoil. The two are not the same issue, despite the single line in the Bible (which can be interpreted to mean gently guide as a shepherd with her crook, rather than beat as an adult with a switch).

Another blogger writes about going against her culture’s insistence on spanking, with fabulously well-adjusted results. She argues that consistent, firm, well defined boundaries work much better than barbed wire for children.

It seems that spanking versus not is being touted as a disciplined versus undisciplined debate. But  discipline means “to teach” and there are many ways to teach.

Hitting teaches people to hit. That being afraid of authority is the way to survive. That might makes right. A survey of spanking studies shows spanking hurts kids long term, but gets them to comply short-term.

Drawing clear boundaries and insisting on respect teaches boundaries and respect. Seems pretty clear what parents and children all need to grow the next generation of thoughtful and respectful citizens.

Maybe not spending enough time together is the issue. Maybe a violent culture is the problem. Maybe not understanding the future consequences of an easy choice is the heart of our problems. Maybe cultures, social, religious, and otherwise, that teach negative consequences for negative behavior instead of positive consequences for positive behavior is wherein our dilemmas lie.

I just think that needing children to do what you tell them, especially on safety issues, is vital. But spanking isn’t the only way to get there.  And wailing about  “kids these days” without looking at how adults these days behave is ridiculous. What does our culture value? Celebrity, scandal, reward with minimal work, money over happiness, good people gone bad (or wild)…if parents sing these tunes, especially while their kids are in the other room using technology in which social boundaries are exploded and consequences are few, no wonder children are out of control.

*Among the respondents without a history of physical or sexual abuse during childhood, those who reported being slapped or spanked “often” or “sometimes” had significantly higher lifetime rates of anxiety disorders (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.43, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04-1.96), alcohol abuse or dependence (adjusted OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.27-3.21) and one or more externalizing problems (adjusted OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.36-3.16), compared with those who reported “never” being slapped or spanked. There was also an association between a history of slapping or spanking and major depression, but it was not statistically significant (adjusted OR 1.64, 95% CI 0.96-2.80). INTERPRETATION: There appears to be a linear association between the frequency of slapping and spanking during childhood and a lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse or dependence and externalizing problems.”  source Canadian Medical Association journal Oct. 1999

Unsolicited parenting advice

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Over at Bad Mommy Moments there is a dumping ground for all your parenting advice, to enable who want to ignore another batch of well meaning parents a place to peruse and ignore.

I wanted, though, to put my two  cents here, because I can get my readers to add to Bad Mommy’s list of “lose your expectations,” “laugh at  yourself,”  “always apologize,” and the ever popular “don’t go to the indoor playground hungover” advice. And because if my readers don’t hit her comment section my invaluable and genius advice will go to waste. So I offer these points for your complete disregard:

1. Find the parenting book that agrees with you, and only read that one. The others are all full of crap. Clearly, since they don’t agree with you.

2. While you’re pregnant, you can get used to having a child by having a timer set in your house to go off every 10 minutes; and every time it rings, do the opposite of what you’re doing. while holding a gallon of milk under your arm. (Not by the handle. That’s too bloody easy.) You may not continue ANYTHING for more than 10 minutes.

3. Practice the following lines for advice that makes you want to smash your fist into something soft and tooth-filled:
“That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
“Hmmmmm.”
“Well, we’re going to try it this way for a while.”
“That’s what our pediatrician told us to do.”
That’s all you need. Any more polite than that and the idiots will think they’re right. I use “Well, you had your chance with yours, and now it’s my turn.” Be careful. This is only for advanced curmudgeons who enjoy putting people off.

4. You will find the most unusual advocates, and those who you expect to support you will turn on you. So test everybody out, and run screaming from the people who make you question yourself.

5. Breastfeeding is not easy but almost any problem can be solved, so get help. Really.

6. People will tell you to make sure you take time for yourself. You will nod, and think, “of course I will.” Yeah, well, schedule it now. Put an hour right around bathtime and dinner on the calendar for five nights a week. LEAVE THE HOUSE for that hour. If you’re single, get someone to come over and help. If you work outside the home, your time by yourself is the ride to work and the times you get to pee and eat alone. If you don’t get to pee by yourself at work, consider changing careers.*

*And if you have to pump while you pee at work, call the state office of employment, because that’s probably illegal.

7. Let go of the little stuff. For two reasons: one, you can’t do it  all, and two, if you don’t pick your battles, you will lose your mind. In our house we don’t care about bibs or stains or matching clothes or eating with forks. We don’t limit the number of band-aids we put on the outside of our clothes or the number of chores we willing hand over to someone who does them significantly less well but does them because he wants to be part of the family.Boy in pink sandals and toenail polish? Okay. Tricycle in the house? Okay. We hold the line firmly on the important things. Seat belts. Sunscreen. Hats outside. Hold hands in the street. Helmet. Only gentle touches. Thank you notes. That’s about it as far as rules go.  (Hush, all you fans of chocolate day who found out there’s a limit on the quantity that day.)

8. Nobody else has to raise your kid, so nobody else gets to tell you how to do it. The ONLY thing to listen to is your gut. They’re your children. You’ll know, if you’re really honest with yourself, what they need.

9. Invent milestones that they will always remember. There are a few major holidays, but do camping in the living room (and the backyard), and half birthdays with half cakes, and breakfast for dinner nights, and board game nights.

10. And the most important: Do not, do not, do not think that breastfeeding is birth control. Seriously, that’s playing Russian Roulette with the easy-bake baby oven, friends.

Reason number 572 I will never live in the South

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A friend posted this article on facebook, and I was shocked when I read it. They still have segregated proms in Georgia, Mississippi, and other Southern states. One night is the white prom (exclusively), and one night is the black prom. Students responded overwhelmingly to Morgan Freeman’s offer to fund an integrated prom, but white parents submarined it. Schools don’t sponsor the proms; student groups plan them with parents. And efforts by some students to combine the proms always fail because the white parents say they won’t pay for a prom where there are black students.

Are you freaking kidding me? You think we’re gonna have thoughtful, engaged citizens when parts of this country still act as though people are different just because of their color, gender, religion, orientation, politics, learning style? Geez, Georgia, what the hell is wrong with you? America, what the hell is wrong with us?

Segregated proms are a symptom, but a pretty big symptom, of intolerance and fear and hatred and ignorance.  People who believe you can’t marry someone you love. People who don’t “believe” in evolution. Beating other people because of who they love. Government sponsored killing. Government sponsored torture. Wiretapping Americans. Disenfranchising citizens.  Blaming other people for our failures. Corporal punishment. Death penalty. Body by McDonald’s. And AgroBusinessChemicalUSA. Picking and choosing who we help and who we leave on the side of the road. Concentrating wealth in the hands of, like, four hundred people while the rest of the world starves to death.*

Could we, as a nation, be more backward and uncivilized? Didn’t we used to stand for something? Like, maybe, equality and democracy and secular morality? Why do we now seem to stand for narrow-mindedness and hatred?

*no claim of moral equivalence in this list of terrifyingly unAmerican realities in America.

Moms gone wired

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Clearly, these people who accuse mothers of small children of being “at risk for Internet addiction” and who belittle the habit of switching tabs from Twitter to Facebook to blog to email and back until someone responds are not whip-smart blogging mamas. (Okay, yes, I read the article, and yes, she is exactly that. But she’s a quitter, too, because she dropped her four blogs because they were taking time away from her kids. Um, hello, that’s the point.) And the authors and publishers and contributors and  promoters have it  out for mom blogs. (Forget for a moment the article is written by a mom who spent as many as eight hours online a day while the kids were awake. Lady, do you know how much I could get done if I got to be addicted like that? Why can’t I have that personality instead of the “eighteen projects sitting half done because I can’t bear to ignore my child-rearing job” personality?)

They don’t understand that we have finally,  in blogs and twitter and facebook, found forums in which people who understand us and empathize flock to our feet to hear our pearls of wisdom. At home/work we’re ignored. Yelled at. Shat upon, literally. Online there are others like us, feces-covered and chagrined, wishing someone would hear us and tell us we’re worth a shower. Online we all respect each other. Dote on each other. Celebrate each other.  I think these people at CNN are mamablogga haters. And we don’t allow the word “hate” at our house, do we mamas?

People who bandy about the term “addiction” do so without acknowledging that it’s a relatively new term (twentieth century) that basically applies to any activity that takes you away from the socially mandated priorities of work and family. If we were a culture who valued laughter above all else, alcoholism would only be applied to nasty drunks. Silly drunks would be contributing members of society. Since we are Puritanical believers in work and family, online activities that take you away from work or family for one, two, or nine hours a day allegedly represent problems. (But somehow, work that takes you away from family for twelve hours isn’t a problem. Oh, right. That’s just for men. Work that takes women away from family for one, two, nine hours gets a big ol’ judgemental eye roll, too. Lady, do you know how much work I could get done…oh, wait, I’ve already pulled that in this post.) If we were just a society that valued Twitter (don’t hold your breath, for that would be an even more despicable society than we have, really), maybe then moms who spend one, two, nine hours online would be contributing members of society. You moms who Tweet every freaking thought, stacking seven posts on top of each other (which, for the record, is a blog, not Twitter, so stop it and compose your thoughts into something longer and more coherent) would be the superstars of our society, overpaid and overappreciated for your prolific online contributions.

So let’s be honest. We use/dabble in/devour facebook and Twitter and blogging and online shoping and email because it’s almost like being a whole person and having friends who can actually make it to the dates you’ve had to cancel three times, mutually, for sick kids or sleepless nights or filthy houses or school projects.

As one of my friends (whom I would not know without the glory of the Internet) said, she takes all the facebook quizzes just in case the results will reveal a deep understanding of herself she had never achieved by other means, and will save her in therapy and life coaching fees.

Being at home with a small child (or more, heaven help you ladies and gents ‘cuz I’m barely making it with just one) can be frustrating and anger-provoking and stifling and unwelcoming. Those of us used to doing eighty things in a day, being respected, being listened to, being creative and logical and articulate and productive have a hard time, since the product of our labor will be unpaid for twenty to thirty years. Not until we see who our children become, what they love and whom they love and how they love will we know if our work was done well. Not until our children send a Mother’s Day card like the one my brother just sent my mom, apologizing for every single hour of sleep he ever cost her, does the job pay decent wages.

So if we spend a few extra hours on our blogs, or spend one third of our otherwise billable Saturdays off scheduling seven blog posts to arrive each morning, just as though we were productive members of society (ah, crap, I just gave away the secret of my prolific blogging), maybe you’ll cut us some slack and not call us addicted. As long as we promised the padooter will only go on when the wee ones sleep, who does it hurt that we’re on facebook at midnight?

Ah, hell, what do I care if they call me diseased? As long as you’re reading my blog, I don’t care what they call either of us. Cheers, readers. Hope something on the padooter makes you feel a little less stressed at whatever issues your day brought.

*for the record, the CNN article is actually pretty gentle, even if it’s groossly sponsored by pediatric fiber tablets and full of links to sunshine and buttercup links about how to enjoy parenting.  Treacle. But mocking their gentleness is not as much fun as hyperbolic mamablogga hating.

Memorial Day

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Humbled by the sacrifice of centuries’ worth of families throughout the world to our nation’s ideals.

Horrified at how, at times, those sending those families (for it is whole families and not just the amazingly courageous who go) to fight may do so for the wrong reasons.

Reading Joker One by Donovan Campbell. And I am speechless. Read it.

I don’t believe in war, but I believe, deeply, that we owe veterans more than we can ever repay. Thank you. From every cell under my skin. May every single one of you come home honored for the sacrifice you have chosen to make. This country would not exist without each one of you, including those we’ve lost.

Thank you.

I’m so, so old

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Just when I start using a technology, it’d dead. I swear, if there were such a thing as a penultimate adopter, I’d be the model.

I resisted CDs though the 90s because I thought something else would come along. It did, but not for about 10 years after I finally caved to the expensive little discs. I think that was 2001 or so. I still have tapes and  still use ’em. Suck on it.

I didn’t get a blog until everyone and their grandma had a blog. I didn’t get a cell phone until I simply couldn’t resist any longer (and because those little elves that make technology made an MP3 player phone, so I could jump on two technologies at once). Hell, we just got a T.V. And I still refuse to even look at, let alone have an account on, myspace. I’m feeling foolish and pointless twittering.

And now I find out that, right about the time I start compressing ginormous URLs into TinyURLs, Bit.ly surpasses TinyURL in popularity. Even the New York Times knows I’m a dinosaur.

Now kids, tell me about this texting thing you’re always doing… (Not in my class, though. Oooooh that pisses me off. It’s bad enough that you never speak with each other between classes or on breaks anymore. But you’d better get your ass out of my classroom when you’re tempted to text. You’re adults. This is a meeting. Leave if you need to take a call or text, but don’t let me catch you using your damned technology while I’m lecturing, or while you’re supposed to be doing work. It’s time to read so we can all discuss what you’re read, not an excuse to type “what R U doing?” to your friends who are in better classes.)

Roller coaster of optimism

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Standing in shower, rushing, because there have been three solid minutes of quiet rather than shrieking and screaming and interruptions and fits.

In walks a thumping Peanut. Draws back shower door.

P: I’m eating cheese!
M: Heeey! That’s a big deal, buddy. You opened the refrigerator and took out cheese and opened it all your self?
P: Yep.
M: you should be proud of yourself.

And I close the door. And decide to brave shaving. He’s occupied, proud, and not screaming. I mentally wrote a blog post about lovely children and wonderful strides in growth and independence. A heartwarming “You go, Peanut!” post.

Stomping. Door opens again.

P: I’m eating one egg!

And he’s standing there, with a quarter-sized hole in the shell, licking a raw egg.

Oh, my god, I was thrilled with your independence for, like, one whole minute. Now I realize you don’t know very much, even though you can open doors, and with each development there’s a whole lot of hazard and a whole heap of nastiness in store.

Am I supposed to say, “At least I shaved?”
Or “how did you get just the corner of a raw egg opened”
Or “thank god you didn’t eat it like a mongoose?”

I think so.

What *is* the antonym of slurping?

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You know, poor old dirt farmer introduced me to the concept of slurping, (to paraphrase inarticulately, to slurp is to fall to one’s knees in empathetic emotive gaga-ness while digging something (usually art). As in, I slurp Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. Or I slurp Counting Crows’s Recovering the Satellites. Different than the herkies, and much more like something dripping into your soul.

So now I need a colloquial antonym. it can’t be spit, because we don’t tolerate spitting in this house. The opposite of slurp isn’t regurgitate, though hurl, as in both fling and emesis, is a frontrunner. But I need to think of the counter-term for slurping because I have decided to go public with my dislike of Thomas Pynchon novels.

In an old post I discussed the ten books other people love that I loathe . It was a blog meme, it brought me good traffic, I wish it had been twenty books so I could throw in The Notebook and The Da Vinci Code and all such schlock. The meme reminded me of my new, mid-life willingness to put down a book I don’t enjoy and never come back. But that list was for really nauseating texts, and my two decade resistance to Pynchon is now just a great big “I don’t care enough because I’m just not that into  you.” I know he is important for postmodernism. But Wallace has done it better, without the Boomer narcissism wash that leaves self-absorbing goo all over your fingers when you’re done.

So I give up. I’ve reread the The Crying of Lot 49 this week and got a third of the way into V, and I just don’t care anymore. It was hard enough to force myself through the second half of Crying, but I was in Iowa and finished my other two books. I can’t bear to finish V. And life’s too short.

So I’m on to Why Your Child is Smart, a compelling look at why our education system crushes the love of learning in really bright creatures (small children) and how to fix that by rethinking what they need (hit: not to simply be controlled, as is currently the goal) and then I’m going to loll around in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. I was so intensely in love with Inifinite Jest that it made me want a PhD in lit. I was so brought back into the world of the living and thinking and feeling and aching with Consider the Lobster that I can’t bear to wait to read the few remaining Wallace texts I haven’t yet fawned over. So after a brief read on what’s important for my current job, I’ll read another text that will jack me all up with hope for my former and future job in academia. Which will, hopefully not involve teaching Pynchon.

Vacations are lovely

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It’s nice to have my patience back.  Thank you, Iowa and Missouri.

Seriously, there’s something about a family who fawns on your child (and a find-religion week of unidentified nausea [turned out to be the new glasses, thank goodness] and sheer terror about the future) to make me appreciate my sweet little goofball a bit more.

That, and a five-part familial chorus of “you’re doing a great job” (versus the one, rather loud, “you need to change everything because nothing you do is right”) to give one the boost one needs to dive into this job again.

Mmmmm. Welcome home.

Stranger in a strange land

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Wonderful trip, gorgeous landscape, and generally friendly people. But man, it is rather sad to be a vegetarian in Kansas City. We were welcomed warmly, but we’re coming home a little low on protein…

When we went out to dinner, the waitstaff were very polite when they told me that, no, they didn’t have a meatless burger option and yes, the chili has meat (this ain’t the West where they put beans in chili, either—this is straight up chili the way God intended…meat and spices) , and sure they can make the salad without turkey and ham, but who would want that, and yes the sauces were all dairy, why wouldn’t they be, and yes the soups all used beef stock or chicken stock, how else do you make soup? (The Japanese restaurant acros the way didn’t have tofu or edamame, so it wasn’t just our choice of restaurant; it was a whole different planet.) So I had my really tasty plain garden salad with a side of sauerkraut (jarred, but good) and grilled onions (burnt, but yummy), and Peanut had a side of cheese (which he announced loudly was “pretend cheese” because all they had was American cheese [and btw, is that the best face we have to put forward as  Americans? Really?  And the cholesterol-lovers insanity that is an “American breakfast”? Can’t we claim something a little tastier and healthier as our food ambassador? American wild rice or something? San Francisco has been battling the Rice a Roni bit for years (since the SF treat is artisan chocolate and sourdough), and the French aren’t exactly pleased with the fries and toast thing (pan perdue isn’t really from France, and pomme frites aren’t native, either), so I guess we can suck it up and claim processed oil as our signature cheese. But you can’t make me  eat it.]

As expected, at the  markets, there was no hummus section or organic foods. Saw that coming 1,000 miles away. We came prepared with whole food bars and almonds and dried fruit. But I was surprised that there was no plain yogurt or at least yogurt without gelatin, and no dairy or egg products  produced without hormones or antibiotics and fed a vegetarian diet.

There was great popcorn and plenty of bread. And rolls. And crackers, if we were willing to waver from our self-imposed ban on hydrogenated oils (which we did, because principles are fine and good when you have choices, but of course I’m gonna eat the jello-whipped-cream-pistachio-pineapple-marshmallow goodness because gelatin may come from cows but it doesn’t have a face and I can pretend for one weekend that I didn’t know it was in there). I ate potatoes but Peanut won’t, so he had a ton of cake. And his first chocolate milk. And as many Odwalla smoothies as we could cram in our hotel fridge. (Hey, Iowa and Missouri: really nice work, there, on offering the hotel fridge and microwave standard. Made life much easier. Thank you. You totally rock compared with the nickel and diming coastal hotels that have a fridge stocked with stuff that they charge you to *move* let alone eat or drink, and no microwave at any cost.)

So when we get home we’re going to have hummus and tofu and plain organic yogurt and organic produce and beans and rice until we’re green at the gills. But for now we’re really happy to have seen family. It was an easy, fun trip, and we were lucky to have it.

[And to keep having it, now that we’re waiting at the Kansas City airport for weather in SF to clear before they’ll board us…looks like lunch may be more bread and crackers.]

Valliantly finding happiness

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Fascinating look in the Atlantic Monthly at George Valliant and The Grant Study, a 70+-year look at the lives of promising young men and what they’ve become. The data is being analysed, as seems fitting, as stories about these men and their lives. The results are remarkable.

One of my favorite quotes from Valliant in the podcast accompanying this article is about “the miserable process of getting from 25 and 35 when you’ve got all this health and all this your and you’re scared stiff that when it’s all said and done you’re not going to amount to a hill of beans…”  I’ve said before that 25 is hands down the worst year ever, in terms of existential angst, and I’m finding that mid-thirties ain’t much better. Now that he mentions it, the whole period had some bursts of “okay, I think I’m going to make it,” but it is a morass of angst and torment and existential malaise.

I hope to heaven the hill of beans can begin now…

Awesome children’s books

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After reading this AP story on gender-biased children’s stories, and after hearing a compelling feminist reading of the Berenstein Bears books at the Southwestern Popular Culture Association conference a few months ago, I’ve redoubled my efforts to find rocking children’s books. (I’ve already posted about how, in our house Ming Lo’s wife has a name, not just “Ming Lo’s wife” and dads appear in stories that are only written about child and mum.)

One new title in our library, after hearing friends’ laments about princess bullshit and distress over the Barbie dilemma, is The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. The short version? Princess rescues the prince, and when he criticizes the paper bag she had to wear to get there, she heads into the sunset without him.

Between thid princess and finishing Flux, which reminded me that, though Spouse and I negotiated roles before  getting married and before having Peanut, we need to revisit the discussion to readjust the “default” setting of mom doing everything related to anything. So I’m going to hand off all the domestic duties to Spouse (haven’t told him that yet) because I’m trying to raise a feminist, and that can only happen if I do more of my freelance work and less housekeeping. (You may TOTALLY borrow that justification for yourself. It’s genuinely why I’m slacking on housework [starting now; before this I was trying desperately to do a decent job because of social expectations] but intentional transition of work avoids being shirking and will teach the whole family a lesson *only* if Spouse actually picks up the slack.  Otherwise we just become a penicillin experminent gone awry. I’ll keep you posted.)

Iowa homecoming

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I haven’t been to Iowa since I was a year old. And it’s beautiful here. But it doesn’t feel like home.

A recent comment from a reader in Oregon noted that said reader was thinking of moving back to the midwest. I don’t know, man. I’ve lived a lot of places, and San Francisco is home for me because I’ve spent more time there than anywhere else. But also because I have a thing for major Universities, the ocean, theater, symphonies, and 24-hour days.  So I’m probably staying somewhere between The Pacific Northwest and Northern California. Iowa and Missouri are (mostly) gorgeous, but things close earlier than I can handle. And I don’t fit here. There is no soy for my coffee, nor is there nonfat milk. Nor is there coffee. There’s coffee flavored water. And that’s okay, but it doesn’t feel like home. There is no organic section in the market (although Kansas City had three frozen entrees from Kashi, all of which I purchased) and there is no recycing anywhere, let alone in public places. We’re eating popcorn and hormone-antibiotic-pesticide yogurt for breakfast because the word vegetarian makes people projectile vomit out here…understandable, but it doesn’t feel like home.
There is a reason I couldn’t find parks. Because everything is a park. Our hotel, the only thing for miles and miles, is lakeside, and we awoke to a window full of vast expanses of thick-trunked trees, distant views of barns and silos, the sound of canadian geese, and a steady breeze lapping the muddy water across the front of slowly trolling boats. But radio stations play country and Jesus only. In KC we found alternative rock, classical, NPR, rap, elevator music, classic rock, and 80s nostalgia stations. Iowa border switched to just steel guitar and the Lord.
For those who have lost their corn, Iowa and Nebraska may be the way to go. I could handle the winters, I think, since I’ve spent time in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Boston. But unless I’m in Chicago, I don’t see the Midwest in my future any time soon. I don’t need skyscrapers. I need cafes full of writers, indie music, and stellar theater.
Good luck deciding. Peanut LOVES it here. He’d move with ya.

Perspective

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A sweet family member saw some pictures of Peanut on facebook the other day and said something to the effect of “I don’t understand how someone so cute can be such a terror…”  And I need to clarify, for my own sake (and for his grandma, who reads this blog and did a damned fine job raising Spouse)

Peanut is wonderful. Sweet, gentle, spirited, intense. But compounding that is the fact that he’s three. Before that he was two. Right there, ‘nough said, right? Two can be like having all the poles on your batteries reversed as they are attached to your watering eyeballs. And three can be like peeling off your skin and diving into grapefruit juice. And I just can’t take it. Doesn’t mean he’s actually a terror that Spouse and I talk, daily, mutually, about a 4:30 bedtime for Peanut. He’s not the problem. WE are the problem. We grownups who can’t seem to find the patience and willpower and energy to make it through 15 hours of this every day.  Without a break. Without formal training. Without the benefit of a spare in case we actually sell him to the gypsies. (Anyone know if they’re buying, btw? And where to find them? I know the economy is tough and I don’t know the going rate, but…)

He’s not a terror. We are terrified and terror-stricken and terrorized. But it’s not the boy’s fault. I wish I knew whose fault it is, because I’m all about the blame and the downside and the cloud within the silver lining. But until I find some perspective, my friend is right. It’s a good thing he’s cute.